which is a massive operation to support our troops. he has done real things, real, concrete, achievable things to demonstrate that he not only knows how to lead -- which i think is most definite in his vietnam experience -- but he knows how to manage and managed to a budget. i think he does have more evidence of his chops, so to speak, then your call would suggest. host: minus minnesota, democrats line. caller: good morning. my question is this, yesterday during the program when i was watching, i was more concerned of the fact that we are trying to nominate the secretary of defense for this country but are we dumb attain -- nominating a

secretary of defense for the state of israel? i will take your answer off the air. host: that was part of the discussion yesterday. guest: absolutely. there was a lot of time spent on israel yesterday. it is a huge foreign-policy issue for the. they happen to be in the middle of an environment that is unsettled and without clear paths forward. it is a core interest of the united states. again, it is a scenario where politicians feel strongly and american voters feel extremely strongly. there were some differences of opinion but got explored yesterday. again, that is part of the point of the hearing process -- of a confirmation progress -- process, getting into areas where people have concerns. host: one of the exchanges about

israel, democrat from rhode island. >> interviews and speeches, i have always said i am a supporter of israel. in some cases, i have said a -- i am a strong supporter. i think it is in my book that we have a special relationship with israel. we always have. so i have never voted against israel ever in the 12 years i was in the senate. additional supplemental appropriations, the record is very clear. i might add, as long as we're on the subject, -- senator mel -- nelson may have a clear view of this, there have been a couple of recent statements made by the current israeli ambassador to the united states, the former

ambassador and now the former deputy minister that were fairly positive about me. host: here is maryland, the republican line. caller: good morning. i just wanted to say that i think he is a good choice. i think he tries to be objective. his point yesterday about iraq was very well taken that the war should not have happened in the first place. regardless of whether or not the surge or not. it was based on lies. perception area -- deception. it was a tragedy. the other thing i found interesting, the israeli -- i found it interesting to watch all these interactions going on.

when you look at the middle east, it is a complex issue. what is happening in palestine is a tragedy because you do have military occupations going on. these people's plans are being taken away. i think it is refreshing to get somebody who can be honest about that and say hey, listen, there are two signs -- signs -- sides and they are wrong. guest: that is one of the main selling points about chuck hagel. he is a pragmatist. one of the reasons the president nominated him was that i think he is reading the tenor of the electorate to say this is the kind of person that we want an office, that there is -- and a

large proportion of the electorate it is ideal -- ideologically driven and we want more leaders to look at things objectively and with an open mind. i think that was one of the primary reasons why they are very enthusiastic about senator hagel's nomination. i think your point is well taken. host: editors of the new york times asked, it is clear hagel is in the mainstream.

the usa today ads of this -- host: richmond virginia on the independent line. caller: i am wondering which american people they are talking about. my sentiments are that the colors before me -- their comments before me, the american people are wondering about what these politicians are basing their assumptions on as far as hagel is concerned. he used to be a parity decent sounding person -- decent

sounding person. he is not making sense anymore. thank you. host: isaac from new york, democrat line. caller: good morning. i just wanted to comment on hagel and the perspective of young democrats. to hear this man talk was really astounding. i am quite critical of the obama administration in terms of things i have done. in terms of hagel's nomination, i am very impressed. his views on foreign-policy almost seemed to dip -- too far beyond this era. my only feel is that the political parties will bring this ideology down simply because a lot of people are not prepared for it. thank you and have a good day. guest: i think -- i would beg

to differ about the too far beyond this era. i had the privilege of working for former secretary of state george schultz. in my estimation, senator hagel's views are consistent with secretary schultz, whom i think is one of the giants of our time. i think they have the same sort of outlook of trying to be pragmatic and take a look at things from multiple dimensions and informed judgments based on the conditions of the time. i think we have had many people of this particular persuasion. we have been fortunate in our country to have many leaders like senator hagel. i share your hope that we continue to have them going forward. host: future of afghanistan.

how did hagel handle that? guest: he was in a bind. he handled it as well as he could have. that is one of the things he will face going forward, should he become secretary. i think we are aligning ourselves up for an administration push to bring troops out more quickly than probably the military leaders on the ground will want. so he will likely find himself in a situation where he has to represent those military views to the white house, along with his own judgment. that, i think, will be a tricky road for him to navigate. host: johnson city tennessee, or public in line. caller: yes. i want to make a comment. i think obama and handle -- hagel percent ace two state

solution. is that correct or not? guest: at some point, that is their ultimate goal, yes. caller: don't you think that would make the situation worse, they are trying to divide it? the bible says that god is against that. dividing the land of israel. guest: i think that is a whole separate show on what to do in that region. it is far too complex to get into at this point. senator hagel has been very clear that he supports the president's approach to the region. host: talk about when senators are getting prepared. do they get a briefing book? how is that done? guest: they get some of that from the administration. the committee takes a set --

slightly different approach. the committee staff will also look at that. it is not the committee's job to rubber stamp the nominees. they will take their own look and prepare their own materials for specific members that they asked but also generally for the committee. certainly in an instance like this, i think the republican staff -- it's also both the recipient of and for -- repairing desperate bearing materials. host: arkansas, independent line. i do not push the button. go ahead. start over. caller: ok. i would like to ask about the troop surge. did senator hagel say it was

wrong at the time? and if he said that, why did he not say yes, i said that, i was wrong. you proved me wrong and go on with trying to do whatever he is supposed to do instead of sitting there and beating around the bush instead of saying, yes, i said that and i was wrong. our politicians do not seem to be able to say i was wrong at any time. they always give a big answer for the yes or no. host: that leads to some responses to that -- that the senator dave. it goes like this -- guest: i think that is perhaps a

stronger characterization but not a totally unfair one. he did say i stand by those words because i said them, as i recall. it was in response to that question. i apologize. i have not seen the full context of that speech. when he then went on to say, elegantly, was that his characterization related to the war as a whole rather than the surge specifically. i think i personally shared his judgment that whether or not the war as a whole will be perceived as a good or bad choice in the historical rear view mirror remains to be seen. i think that is what he was trying to say was we don't -- we have not reached a final judgment on that. from an operational and technical perspective, the search was perceived to be successful. i suspect he may wish he had

acknowledged that. he also was trying to say that it was more competent than that. i have an -- happened to spend a lot of time in iraq. success such as that was at the time -- had a thousand different fathers and a lot of different versions of how it came about to include was it just the surge or some commendation of other factors. -- some combination of other factors. he did not answer well but he did acknowledge and he did say he stands by his words. he tried to put it in a bigger context. host: lancaster, ohio. democrat. caller: good morning. i would like to know one thing or two things. host: go ahead. caller: i would like to know how has john mccain can question

this man like he is not too good. another thing, they are only doing this because of who the president is. they are open with that. host: we will leave it there. guest: i think john mccain -- i think what you see is a real passion for the issues that he was questioning him about. he is a passionate man. he is someone who cares deeply and that was evident yesterday. i think he is someone who takes things personally and very much to heart. and again, the iraq war was something he felt acutely and was very outspoken on and has been throughout the execution of that war. i think you could see that yesterday. host: she is a senior adviser

for the center for studies. if you want to watch senator hagel's hearing in total, i invite you to go to our c-span video library at www.c- span.org. thank you very much. coming up, it is our regular look at america by the numbers. they will look at how americans across the country are doing financially. we will be right back. >> my cartoons depict native humor.

when i first started this cartoon, they were native characters in native situations. my audience was geared towards natives. in the last four or five years, they have become more universal where they spilled out into the mainstream or dominant culture. it is more universal now. i am inspired by people that i grew up with, my friends and family. members of my tribe. just basically watching people and some things they do. it is surprising if you pay attention to what people do and what people say area and there is a lot of humor that you can find in that and make your own twists. people who have read my

cartoons for the first time, i hope they take the appreciation of the native culture and the native way of life. it is not always to. -- depicted correctly in the cinema or in books. but this cartoon is coming from a genuine native american, and these are my views. even though may not agree with some cartoons or my views, i hope they can appreciate it because it is coming from a real person that has grown up on the reservation and has seen the dominant culture and lived with the dominant culture. so some of the stuff that i learned from that, i put back in my cartoons. >> cartoonist, one of the authors you will meet this weekend at book tv and c-span's look behind the history of santa fe. saturday at noon eastern on c- span twos book tv and sunday at

five on american history tv on c-span three. "washington journal" continues. host: america by the numbers. two guests are joining us. he is with the bureau of and that -- economic analysis. also joining us for this discussion, neil irwin of the washington post. welcome. .et's start with you in the paper today, there is a line about personal incomes. it says that the congress report -- reported 2.6% from the month before and the month goes upward. can you give detail about this report and what it is about? guest: sure. we put out a personal income report every month. in december, we had a larger

than usual increase. there were special factors going on. in particular, the number of companies paid out dividends in anticipation of tax law changes. also, some companies paid out special bonuses. that did lead to an unusually strong number for december. but, you know, in general, it was a temporary kind of thing. we would not expect those things. host: how did the year look? guest: overall, we had an increase of 3.5% for the year .12. -- 2012. that is a good increase. it is a little below the long- term trends. host: when is a personal income, is that take-home pay or are there several factors associated? guest: there are a number of

factors involved. within personal income, we have wages and salaries which account for more than half of the total. we also have small business income, things like rental income and also investment income in terms of interest and dividends and so forth. there is transfer income, social security and unemployment and so forth. there is a variety of types of income. it is an all-encompassing. host: a boost as far as money is concerned. what does that say overall, not only from how people personally did but how does it into the economy? guest: we are seeing an economy that is recovering slowly from

the crisis and recession of 2008 and 2009. we can put a number of side for a minute because that is about investment income. even over the long time horizon, we are seeing incomes rise. people are earning more money. people are starting to put people back to work. certainly, this is not a happy days are here again and everything is fine. we are not healed but it is making progress in that direction. host: take a look at a lot of factors. it look at wages and income and rental income. you look at investment income as a whole. that paints a picture of where americans are financially. guest: that's right. you can't buy the things you need if you don't have income. for some, that is a paycheck from their job or from retirees,

social security benefits. or for people who have invested a lot, it might be invested -- investment income dividends. wherever it comes from, that is the core of how you buy the things you need and want. host: our guests will take a look at these numbers. call the lines if you want to join in on the conversation. if you are doing better, give us a call at this number. you can send us a tweet reflecting those categories, if you want. you can also send us an e-mail at . it shows an annual percent

change. when you take a look at the percent change in 2011, it is a 5.1%. you take a look at 2012, tell us what happened in between. guest: there was a bit of a slowdown in 2012 impaired to 2011. 2011, we did have some boost in particular the payroll tax and some other kinds of things. but still, we are seeing steady growth. this is the third consecutive year that personal income has grown. you can see the early drop during 2008 and 2009. that was during the recession. we are getting growth, but you can see we are below the trends that we were on before the recession.

i think relative to the typical increase that we had before the recession -- we are still well below that trend. host: what would you add as far as these numbers are concerned? guest: the economy was going along into thousand eight and 2009 and it hit a bump and dropped. the economy has been expanding in both personal incomes and growing and expanding since the middle of 2009. it has not been growing fast enough to make up that lost ground. it has been growing at about the same case historically. it got on the same path rather than accelerating and going up. we have not had a catch-up effect. that is why you still have eight percent unemployment and the people feel like they are not earning they would like. host: mr. moulton referred to

the payroll tax cut. does that affect how future numbers are, in your opinion? guest: after-tax income. the payroll tax is what pays for social security. at the end of 2010, it was can't -- cut to give americans more money in their pockets. it is two percent of worker pay for most workers. that was allowed to expire at the end of december. that first paycheck in january for all americans was something like two percent lower than it would have been in december. that is less take-home pay and less money you have to spend. we will see that on on the consumption side in 2013. guest: he summarized it very well. host: what information do you take to make these charts happen? guest: these are part of the

national accounts which are designed to cover the entire economy. it we have within that a household corporate sector and so forth. we are drawing data from hundreds of different sources. we have administrative records for payroll as will a survey. we are bringing together a lot of different data sources. host: our first call, rockville, maryland. ben, tell us why you are doing better. caller: i got a new job about six years ago -- six weeks ago. i got my background and i landed a better job. host: what field do you work in ? caller: property management. it seems like in my previous job, a lot of the action that was happening in making the

economy recover is all happening at the community bank level. the community banks that get the value of this local business whereas the larger banks want the national tenants. it is the community banks that look at a person as a whole and say, yes, property a is not doing great but property be is doing excellent. it is the community banks that have developed that relationship from the ground up. i did not see it as a national bank level. why are we putting more money into the community banks? i don't understand it. guest: it is an interesting point. we have seen a lot of this in the economy. small banks all over the country. there were quite a few banks that went under. those that are left are pretty strong. they have capital and depositors. people did not want to deposit their money and one of the megabanks went to their bank

down the street. as the caller said, they tend to have a good understanding of the local market and the real estate conditions and what sort of demand is out there. they can make loans on projects that may be a jpmorgan or citibank would not take a look at. it is a strength to the economy. the u.s. banking system has been resilient. any your, it is more dominated by these large megabanks that are enormous. maybe it is a source of strength for the american economy. host: garden city, new york. hello. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a question. i would like to look at -- actually, if your guest can talk about at a more granular level, yes, personal income has increased. can you break it down to how much of that increase came from interest income, stocks, etc.,

versus people who are just middle to lower middle class who just get their personal income from their salaries? guest: you have a chart here taking a look at investment income. host: it talks about personal income receipts guest: this looks at interest and dividend income. interest rates are still quite low. interest income is low. dividend income has been improving as corporate profits have returned and so forth. if you look at the chart, we are below the level we were at before the recession. there was an increased in 2012 of 3.8%. it accounted for some of the

increase in personal income. it is decelerating from the increase we have the prior year. host: how much are investments are part of a personal portfolio? guest: it depends on the person. there are people for whom investment income is the opal only source of their income and wealth. others do not have savings in the banks or stocks who are living paycheck to paycheck. this is one of the areas we're the distribution of where people get their income is most dispersed and how household make their money and how they use it. host: illinois, doing worse, jay. caller: it has been harder on us. we are in that category of making under $250,000 per year.

illinois increased our employment taxes 66%. it took over $110 per month out of my paycheck. recently, this new tax took another $110, the amount of money i have to spend is decreasing. my wife and i find it difficult to save money. we seem to be drowning. thanks for taking my call. host: laura from twitter says -- she sums it up by saying -- this chart takes a look at income after taxes. guest: taxes and inflation nibble away at the purchasing power. the chart we saw earlier was not and just for gas adjusted for

taxes. that increased 155% and one to 12. that is less than we thought personal income, compared to 1.3% in 2011. the other factor i would point out is that it is only 4.3% above where it was in 2007 before the recession. even that 4.7% is mostly coming from population growth. if you look at per capita real disposal income, it is unchanged. that says that the typical american family has not seen any improvement since 2007. guest: we see that in other measures of wages and how americans are doing as well. this has been a tough environment. we have seen wage gains in nominal terms. in real terms, basically flat,

depending on a little negative or positive depending where the numbers settle. we are not seeing any strong upward trend in real wages. this increase in the payroll tax will further that trend. and youe pay drops 2% do not get a raise, that is getting a pay cut. that is a tough situation. host: where there the other tax cuts? guest: states have looks to do that on the tax side by increasing taxes. at the federal level, this is a debate. real --nothing seems to be on the agenda. the fiscal cliff deal at the end of december locked in some tax rates and policies that could be there for some time.

we have the series of negotiations and cliffs over budget cuts. that is not about taxes. it could become about taxes. we seem to have no new federal tax increases on the horizon. you never know how things will shake out. host: brian. new york says he is doing better and worse. tell us why. caller: the question reads, how are americans doing financially? my company, which is an oral -- auto repairs and auto parts, had a decrease in business and revenue in 2012. we have strong years and 2009, 011.0, and 2 when people keep their cars longer, we tend to be busy. looking at myself in 2012, we

had some difficulties last year achieving the goals that we established for sales. however, it indicate that the economy is getting better. i have been in this business 35 years. that is consistent. a lot of our regular customers that were hanging onto their cars have bought new cars. if not new, at least one or two years old. that is a good indication that the economy is slowly coming back. guest: for small businesses they are often sole proprietorships or partnerships where the income directly goes to the person who is running the business. we do capture unincorporated businesses as part of personal income.

we can see on the chart that there has been some improvement. the pickup was stronger in 2010 and 2011 their 2012. we have a 4.0% increase in the 12 compared with 4.9% in 2011. within this category, there are a variety of businesses. you mentioned car repair. there is construction, real estate brokers, doctors, dentis ts. it is quite a diverse group of people working in the small business. host: how small businesses are doing. guest: it depends on the industry. there are some industries that are cyclical. when there is a recession, people hold onto their older cars. more business for car repair

shops. as the economy goes, small business goes. you cannot have a real recovery until small businesses are failing and. this slow growth environment is not back to where we were in 2007. we are making progress. host: robert, richmond, regina, -- richmond, virginia says he is doing the same. caller: you talk about how americans are doing financially. my next-door neighbor travels extensively internationally. he tells me here, we are doing great in comparison to the rest of the world. we have our problems, but when you compare our situation to the rest of the world, we should feel good about ourselves. guest: it is a complex global

economy. europe is in recession. some european companies are in a terrible recession. europe areorthern urin not so bad. japan has been in a segment -- started economic situation. emerging markets are growing rapidly from lower incomes. and china or brazil or india, they may have on percent growth, but that is at a lower level of wealth and income than we are used to in the united states and western europe. it is a tough global economy. we have heard that from exporters. the fact that the european economy is in a bad state means you are selling less stuff. host: here is a recap on the

headlines -- people are still spending. guest: they are. we can bring up a chart. we have a chart about consumers bending. -- consumer spending. they are ingesting -- spending increased 1.9% in 2012. consumer spending has been practically picking up and motor

vehicles. people are starting to buy new cars again. we also are seeing in the real estate market some pickup in new home construction, which have been stagnant for about six years since the real estate crash back in 2006. we really are seeing consumers feeling like making cash spending their money again. that these into the full economy. consumer spending is a large part of gross domestic product. host: we hear about the current condition of the economy, but when an iphone comes out, people are still buying it. guest: we have seen two competing forces. on the one hand, consumer income -- we have been talking about how dispersal income is not really rising. on the other hand, they also

have less lending composite heat and less ability to borrow. people are not taken on as much debt. credit card standards are tighter. tighter credit, stagnant incomes. we all want the latest iphone. it is 70% of gdp. it is one people want to buy. it has been hard when real disposable income has been flat and credit and wealth is lower. host: what about credit card use? guest: people are still using credit cards but not in quite a dangerous way before the recession. credit card companies are pickier and what kind of credit they will extend. americans are getting smarter about how they use dead. we have seen household debt levels come down in the last five years.

we are deleveraging and getting our finances and to a more sustainable position. host: is that capture as far as the way spending habits are changing? guest: that is true. we saw a very sharp decrease in consumer spending as people realized their spending was too high relative to their level of income, but i think as incomes have started to grow in the last three years, we are finally reaching the point where people feel they can buy the ipads or new cars on occasion. not everyone feels that way, but many are at the comfort level. guest: we have a savings rate that is at a much more sustainable level. there were times when the personal savings rate got into the 2% range. that is putting yourself in a

risky position. it skyrocketed to ring the recession. people held onto their wallets. even those who did not lose their job tended to spend less. the result was part of why we had a recession and it is also increasing savings rates. we are seeing levels in the five percent range. that seems to be a more durable savings level. host: 3.9% in 2012. context? guest: the context is that you can see before the recession we were down 2%. we did see a large spike in savings. we are talking about the difference between the total income the household brings an and the amount they spend during the year. it represents the money that is left over, which they can use to

pay down their debt or to save it in terms of putting it into the bank or buying financial assets. we have had higher savings rates. if you go back in history, at some times we had savings rates as high as 10%. five percent seems to be the level that has been a long-term average over the last 15 years. host: andrew, englewood, new jersey, doing worse. caller: i wanted to add my input. i hear you guys tossing around all of these phrases and words and terms. i feel like the answer is to look at more general things.

rather than asking individuals their circumstances, i think the math speaks louder than anything else. right now, the math is saying that with this unlimited spending, our country has contracted. that is quite a big deal. that is a factual statement. that should explain to you what is happening. it is almost as if it is an analogy to a patient having cancer and filling them with chemo. guest: there was a recent headline about the economy shrinking 21%. put some context to it. guest: and the final three months of 20 after 12 -- 2012,

it was zero grows. it is still not great. it is in positive territory. this has been caused by a couple of factors. businesses spend down their inventories. instead of businesses making more stuff to sell, they sold goods off of their store shelves and out of warehouses. the good news is that should reverse and the coming quarters. eventually, that is not something that should be sustained. defense spending took a big dip, 22% annual rate. that was a surprise. it seems to be not quite real. there is always unevenness and how the spending happens. if the procurement works, you can have a big spike in one

corner and a drop in the next. it is not as if the spent spending was cut 22% in the fourth quarter. this is a reminder that we are in the time of slow growth, weak underlying growth, combined with fiscal tightening, higher taxes, spending cuts. we will see downward pressure on both coming out of washington to get our deficits under control. hopefully, we do not have to many quarters where we end up in negative territory. this is not an economy growing six percent and can hinder those bibles easily. host: magnolia, texas, david, better. caller: [indiscernible]we are doing great here. i noticed the super bowl is forming dollars per minute.

everything is packed. all of the football stadiums. i do not see any recession. host: you said you are doing better why? caller: i live 15 miles from where they are building the number one country in the world. we are getting roads. it is unbelievable around here. we have job signs everywhere. as far as the savings, when interest rates are 1.5%, who will put their money in the bank? bernanke wants you to put it in stocks. that is why there is no interest rate. i took my money for years ago when i bought those rifles. i have made so much money on them. it is unbelievable. host: he mentioned social security. there is a category about the social safety net. guest: we use the term government social benefits to cover quite a few different

provisions for households that are provided by the government, social security, one of the biggest. we also include medicare, medicaid, unemployment insurance, and others for retirees and for the unemployed or people needing social assistance. we see that those payments increased quite a bit during the recession, which is what you would expect as people become unemployed and collect their unemployment insurance. that growth has slowed down. in 2012, and increased 2.4% compared to 1.7%. we do expect some growth in this overtime because we do have the baby boom cohort entering the retirement years now. we would expect some increase, particularly in social security and medicare overtime.

this has been slowing down from the big increases we saw during the recession. host: the viewer asked both of you about the affordable health care act. if you see in a broad sense and packing the spending in 2013 and 2014. guest: it is hard to -- healthcare is an odd category. for most workers, it is paid for by your employer. you see a small share of the cost. others pay it out-of-pocket. for others, it is a government benefit. it shows up as government transfer payments. seeing how the affordable care act will work and affect these things, there is a lot we do not know. it was passed more than two years ago. we are just seeing how it will work and affect a lot of things in the economy. host: is this in your purview?

guest: we only have data through 2012. it has been relatively little impact so far. we expect the numbers to show up more as we go into 2014. host: derek, minnesota, doing the same. caller: do you work for the government? are you independent? guest: i work for the government at the bureau of economic analysis as part of the department of congress. we put up economic statistics as our main business. caller: do you have relatives in there? host: your question? caller: what we are talking about today is how americans are doing financially. i look at it from 50-year-old point of view.

the 50 and up have been so scared with the economy that they have kept their money in the bank, which gives the bank that leverage. the interest rate has been at zero percent for two years. it is a joke. we have all of those people making nothing on their money. the devaluing of our dollar from what the government is doing is a detriment. a 14-year-old child would get this. i explained to my daughter. she understood that you do not need to go into debt. you have that interest. that is the killer. this three percent thing, i am back to that guy in new jersey. the people on the ground, this is a bad economy. if you have money, you will make money. guest: we have had there'll interest rate policies for four years -- zero interest rates

policies for four years. the rationale is trying to incentivize investment consumption and saying, if you only get half a percent on your money if you put it on the bank, maybe you will build a factory with it instead or by a car instead. it is trying to encourage consumption in an economy that will result in more jobs. there is no question that that is harder for savers. if you are a saver and want to put your money and the bank and earn 5% interest with no risk every year, that hurts you. if the policy succeeds in getting the economy on track, everyone will be better off. for now, if you are a saver relying on interest out of your bank account to live on, it is hard. host: david, new york, better.

caller: i would be better but the bank will not give you the interest rate. they should reset the interest rate to the lowest rate they offered you. small businesses would have more money to put back into their businesses. i would save over $1000 a month off of my mortgage. i could put that back into my business and keep the six employees i have hired employed. maybe i could afford to pay for health insurance for all of them. the government is not doing it -- anything about it. the bank is not doing anything about it. the banks -- if the bank for forrced to reset to the lowest interest rate, maybe the economy would get a jumpstart. guest: what interest rate? caller: the lowest interest rate was two point 99%. by the time i got through doing the paperwork, they lose it.

they say, you do not qualify because you do not make enough money. you are paying high interest rates on a mortgage that you should have the capability of refinancing at the lowest rate automatically with no questions asked. that would stimulate the economy. host: what is your mortgage rate? guestcaller: it is 6.79 on a 30 00 loan.$350, $1000 from him into my business would help a lot. host: what is your business? caller: a small retail store in a strip mall. mom and pop businesses have to talk -- worry about the big box stores. guest: this is the flipside of the previous caller. this is one of the ways that the

low interest rates have not havd as big as an effect as hoped. people like the caller have a 6.75% interest rate. they can only refinance if they are not underwater, if they have enough -- good credit, if they have a decent debt to equity ratio. if you cannot refinance because the value of your property has declined, that is a problem. that is the reason low interest rates have not stimulated demand. low interest rates can help the economy. if this caller was able to get the 3% interest rate on his mortgage, he would have more money to invest in the business and keep his employees. that would be good for the economy. that is why that hasn't these

low interest rate policies and affect, which is not as good for savers who have the flipside of the low interest rates. host: naples, florida, diana. doing worse. caller: i am a senior on medicare and social security. i want to talk about the interest rates. my house is paid off. they do this mass appraisal. for the last -- since 2005, my house has had a $400,000 market value. i want to move to ohio and sell my house. i hate to get it away. my husband has passed away two years ago. i have money in the bank that i am not getting even 1% interest.

i have a senior ira. you cannot put money into it. you have to take some on the out every year. i am stuck. people think we are rolling in dough down here if you are a senior. we have the cost of living. we also got a raise in our medicare payment. i want people to know that. host: we will have to leave it there. time for final thoughts. what do you want to add that we have not talked about? guest: we have not talked a lot about wages. wages have gone up some, but they are still lagging behind the rest of the economy. since the recession, they have been 7% higher, but nominal gdp is up about 12%. guest: the economy is growing. not as fast as we will like. it is steady progress. he saw that with the jobs report and personal income data. host: go to our c-span website.

we have the information for you to look at. we want to thank brent moulton and neil irwin. that's it for today's program. we'll see you tomorrow. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> the labor department released jobs numbers this morning. the unemployment rate rose to 7.9. 157,000 jobs were added in

january. hiring was stronger over the past two years while economic growth sputtered. you can find a link to today's jobs report on our website, c- span.org. the lessons learned from the 2012 campaign and how they might apply to the current congress. representatives from interest groups will take part of that event live following today's session in the house at 11:00 a.m. eastern this morning. secretary of state clinton officially steps down today. john kerry will be sworn in today. was confirmed by the senate and will be sworn in by justice sotomayor. live coverage starting at 2:30

eastern. remarks atclinton's an event yesterday at the council on foreign relations where she talked about the need for smart power diplomacy. afterwards she to questions about the future of the american political system. this is about an hour. >> please take your seats.

good afternoon. on behalf of our members, i want to welcome to the council on foreign relations. i'm president of the cfr. we're an independent membership organization, a think tank, and the publisher dedicated to the foreign policy choices facing this country. we are continuing secretary of state week at the council. we were fortunate to hear from george shultz on tuesday night who was secretary of state for some six and half years under ronald reagan. we're honored to host hilary rodham clinton during the last 24 hours as president obama's first secretary of state.

this is her third appearance as secretary of state. this speech is probably the most anticipated she is given here and the most anticipated farrell address since 1796. [laughter] i suspect her views on entangling alliances might be somewhat different from george washington. you have seen the statistics. she has visited 112 countries. 87 days of flight time. more important is what you've put into the miles. some of the most consequential

decisions of this young century, when in doubt the war in iraq and the war in afghanistan, and building and multilateral coalition with tough sanctions against iran. women, gay-rights. you have done all this against the backdrop of historic economic downturn that limited every country's room to maneuver. thank you for your dedicated service to this country. [applause]

secretary clinton will deliver her speech and there will be time for a few questions. >> thank you so much for that introduction and for everything you have done to lead this valuable institution. i want to thank the board and all my friends and colleagues and other interested citizens who are here today because you respect the council and understand the important work it does and are committed to ensuring chart a path to the future in the best interest of the world. tamara is my last day as secretary of state. it is hard to predict what any day in this job will bring. tomorrow my heart will be full.

this has been a singular honor. there is no more extraordinary group working anywhere in the world. these last days have been bittersweet for me. this opportunity i have gives me some time to reflect on the distance that we have travelled and to take stock on what we've done and what is left to do. it is important what we faced in january of 2009. two wars, and economy in free fall, traditional alliances fraying, and around the world people questioning america's questioning to core values and our ability to maintain our global leadership. that was my in-box on day one as

your secretary of state. we still face many difficult challenges. but a lot has changed in the last four years. we have ended the war in iraq and brought osama bin laden to justice. we have revitalized american diplomacy and strengthened our alliances. we are heading in the right direction. to understand what we have been trying to do, it is helpful to start with some history. i was honored to deliver the lecture at the naval academy

name for our first secretary of defense after world war ii. it was noted the soviets believed the post war world should be shaped by a handful of major powers acting alone. the american point of view is that all nations professing a desire for peace and democracy should participate. what ended up happening is something in between. the united states and our allies succeeded with a broad architecture of institutions, and she for the u.n., world bank, and nato that defended universal values and benefited peoples and nations around the world. a handful of major powers did end up controlling those institutions and shaping

international affairs. two decades after the end of the cold war, we face a different war. more countries than ever have a voice in global debate. nations gain influence through the strength of their economies rather than their militaries. nine state actors are empowered. we faced challenges from financial contagion to climate change to human and wildlife trafficking that spill across borders and the fight unilateral solutions. the old postwar architecture is crumbling under the weight of new threats. the geometry has become more distributed and defused as the challenges we face have become

more complex and crosscutting. the question we ask every day is what does this mean for america? how can we invents our interests and also appalled a just rule based international order, a system that does provide clearer rules of the road to fair labor standards. we have to be smart about how we use our power. the might of our military, the influence of our diplomacy and the energy of our people remain unrivaled. as the world has changed, so have the levers that can change in shape international affairs. truman and acheson were building

the parthenon with clear lines. the pillars or a handful of big institutions dominated by major powers. that structure delivered unprecedented peace and prosperity. but time takes its toll even on the greatest atedifice. we need a new architect for this world. more frank gehry than formal greek. think of it. of this work might appear have hazard. it is sophisticated -- some of his work might appear haphazard. we need a dynamic mix of materials and structures. as we saw from the intervention

to stop a massacre in libya, there will always be times when it is necessary to use force. america is the ability to project power over the globe remains essential. i'm proud of the partnerships the state department has formed with the pentagon. america's traditional allies and friends in europe and east asia remain in valuable partners in nearly everything we do. we've spent energy strengthening those bonds over the past four years. the un and world bank and nato are still essentials. all of our institutions and relationships check need to be modernized and complemented by new institutions and

partnerships that are tailored for new challenges and model to the needs of a variable landscape. like how we elevated the g-20 during the financial crisis or created the climate and clean air coalition to fight short live pollutants like black carbon. or work with parties where we stood up the first global terrorism forum. we are working with organizations. consider the arab league in libya. even the lower mekong initiative that we created to help reintegrate burma into its neighborhood and try to work across national boundaries on whether dams should or should not be billult.

ilt. world, people want to actually show up. a secretary state might have been able to focus on small number of capitals, shuttling between the major powers, today we must take a broader view. people say all the time. "i look at your travel schedule. why togo?" togo holds a rotating seat on the security council. it is not just where we engage but with whom. you cannot build a set of durable partnerships with governments alone.

the opinions of people now matter. in virtually every country i visited, i held town halls and reached out to citizens and organizations and business communities and so many others. have contributions to make an increasingly they are driving economic and political change, especially in democracies. the state department has twitter feeds in 11 languages. i participated in a global town hall and took questions from people on every continent. we have to be strategic about all of the levers of global power and look for the do not lovers that could not have been possible or invented a decade ago. we need to widen the aperture of our engagement.

technology. a 21stnot bea first century leader without 21st century tools. i have championed 21st century state-craft. with a center for counterterrorism communications at state. experts and specialists from across the government fluent in arabic, somali use social media to expose al qaeda's abuses including its brutal attacks on muslim civilians. with are leading the effort to defend internet freedom so remains open a reliable for everybody. we're helping human rights

activists get online and communicate more safely. the country that built the internet should be leading the fight to protect it from those who would use it as a tool of control. our nonproliferation agenda. negotiating the new start treaty was an example of this at its best. but we also have been working with partners around the world to create a new institution to keep dangerous materials out of the hands of terrorists. we impose crippling sanctions against iran and north korea. enlisted banks and high tech international financial institutions and today the oil

tankers sit idle and their currency has taken a massive hit. economics. everybody knows how important that is. it was thought that business drove markets. they have converged. creating jobs at home is now part of the portfolio of diplomats abroad. we can make a trade a race to the top and not a scramble to the bottom. we are prioritizing economics in every region. we ratified free-trade agreements with colombia and panama. along with the security transition, we're supporting and

economic transition that increases regional economic integration. we call this the new silk road. we're helping developing countries grow their economies through greater trade and investment partnerships with the private sector and more participation from women. we think this is an investment in our own economic future. people are always surprised to hear seven of the 10 fastest- growing economies in the world are in africa. other countries are doing everything they can to help their companies invest in emerging markets. other countries are engaged in a clear economic diplomacy. we should, too.

there is a crucial strategic dimension to this development work as well. wheat states represent some of our most significant threats -- weak states represent some of our most significant threats. economics will always play a role and that. think about energy and climate change. protecting the future of our planet is one of the greatest challenges of our time. we're using grass-roots partnerships to crub carbon emissions -- to curb carbon emissions. we're focusing on new partnerships. iraqis.rked with the rock

we have intensified our efforts to resolve energy disputes from the south china sea to the eastern mediterranean. this has been helped significantly by the increase in our own domestic production. as your runyan oil -- as iranian oil has gone offline, other oil has gone online. levers of power and values we cannot afford to ignore. universal rights exist. governments are obligated to protect them. we're at the front lines of today's emerging battles like

the fight to defend the communities and religious minorities wherever and whoever they are. virtually every country that threatens peace is a place where the rule of law is weak. places where women and girls are treated as second class human beings. just ask a woman from pakistan. as the women who can no longer go to school. go endure in the cond rape. the jury is in. if women and girls everywhere were treated as equal to men in rights and opportunities, we would see political and economic progress everywhere.

this is not only a moral issue. it is and economic issue and the unfinished business of the 21st century. one of the first things i did was to elevate the office of global women's issue. i am pleased that yesterday the president signed a memorandum making that office permanent. four years ofhat caree make a major push at the united nations to integrate women worldwide. we have seen successes in places like liberia. we have urged leaders to recognize women as equal citizens. we're supporting women

entrepreneurs around the world. technology human-rights -- i know and not punished here that list and they say, is not all a bit soft? what about the hard stuff? that is a false choice. we need both. i will be the first to proclaimed loudly that america's military might is and must remain the greatest fighting force in the history of the world. i will also make clear that our diplomatic power, the ability to convene our moral suasion -- we will ensure freedom of

navigation in all the world's seas. we will go after al qaeda and its wannabes. we will do what is necessary to prevent iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. there are limits to what soft power can achieve. there are limits to what hard power can achieve. it is why i have been talking about smart power. look at our approach to two regions undergoing swift changes. engagementxpanding in the asia-pacific. adapting our force posture is a key element of our strategy. but so is strengthening our alliances through new

arrangements. we have sent marines but have ratified the career-free -- korea-free trade agreement. the irreplaceable role america plays. this so-called tebet has been about creative diplomacy -- this so-called pivot. it elevated a form for engaging on high-stakes issues like the south china seas. we have encouraged india's look east policy. we have used trade negotiations over the partnership to find common ground with a former adversary in vietnam.

our effort has encompassed all the levers of power and more. you could ask a self-declared, how could we approach an issue in the south china sea without a deep understanding of energy politics, diplomacy, smart economics state craft? think about burma. this took a blend of economic and political tools. the country's leaders wanted the benefits of joining the global economy. they did not want to be an international pariah. we needed to engage with them on many fronts to make that happen

while boosting investment in upgrading our diplomatic relations. then there is china. how we deal with one another will define so much of our common future. it is uniquely complex. had high level chinese leaders quote back to me, we're trying to write new entered to what happens when an established power and a rising power meet. we have to be able to use every lever at our disposal all the time. we cover both traditional issues like north korea and also emerging challenges like climate change, intellectual property

concern as well as human rights. this approach was put to the test when we had to keep a meeting of the dialogue on track while addressing a crisis over the fate of a blind human-rights dissident. such an incident not long ago my will have scuttled the talks. have through confidence- building built enough resilience into the relationship to be able to defend our values and promote our interests at the same time. there will be other tests. we will continue to walk in china's rise if it chooses to play a constructive role in the region. the future depends on our ability to engage across all

these issues at once. that is true as well for the middle east and north africa. i have talked about our strategy in this region including at speeches and in my recent testimony before congress. there has been progress. american soldiers have come home from iraq. people or electing their leaders in egypt and libya. there is a broad coalition to stop muammar gaddafi from massacring his people. and a cease-fire is holding in gaza. all good things but not enough. unifying french companies and building demographic institutions.

the impasse shows little sign of easing. the assad regime considers to slaughter its people. iran is pursuing its nuclear ambitions. we continue to face real terrorist threats from yemen and north africa. i cannot pretend that the united states has all the solutions to these problems. we are clear about the future we see for the -- and the people. where people live in dignity and not dictatorships. there is no doubt getting to that future will be difficult and will require every single tool in our toolkit. you can have a true peace without directing the active

conflicts and the underlying causes. you cannot have the prosperity that should be available unless there is a vibrant private sector and good governance. you cannot have truth and security unless leaders start leading, unless country start opening their societies and not shutting off the internet or undermining democracy. building schools and not burning them. there is no dignity in that. there is no future in it either. everything i have discussed and all that i've led off has --

there is a big challenge of global power and influence to maintain our leadership. but this is an enormous opportunity. the united states is uniquely positioned in this landscape. things that make us who we are are beautifully matched to the demands of this era in this interdependent world. we have to keep pushing forward on this agenda. consolidate our agenda in the asia-pacific without taking our eyes of the middle east and north africa. keep working to curb the spread of deadly weapons. manage the combat mission in afghanistan without losing focus

on al qaeda. pursue an economic agenda that sweeps from asia to latin america to europe. keep looking for the next burmas. they are not any position where we can all applaud the which has begun a process of opening. capitalize and intensify our efforts on climate change. take on the emerging issues like cyber security across our society. we are the indispensable nation. are the force for peace. we have to get it right. leadership has to be earned by each new generation. the reservoirs' of good will will not last forever.

in some places, they are depleted. new generations of young people don't remember gis the breading their country or americans saving millions of lives from disease.and we need to look and focus on those issues that matter most to their lives and futures. the united states is still the only country that has the resolve to rally nations and peoples together, to solve problems on a global scale, we cannot shirk that responsibility. our ability to let alone is unparalleled when necessary.

we are surely the indispensable nation. it is recognition of our role and responsibilities. is why all the decline this are dead wrong. the united states must lead in this century even as we lead in new ways. we know leadership has its cost. we know it comes with risks. we've seen that began in recent months. leadership is an honor, one that chris stevens and his colleagues embodied. we must strive to be worthy of that honor. that sicker charge has been my number store every day that i served as secretary of state. it has been an enormous

privilege, the 7000 in washington in more than 270 posts around the world. they work every day in often dangerous circumstances because they believe the united states is the most extraordinary force for peace and progress the world has ever known. so today after four years in this job, i say our nation is even stronger. i confidence in our future is as well. i know what it's like when the airplane touches down in some far off capitol can i get to feel the responsibility to represent the world's indispensable nation. i am confident my successor and his successors and all who

serve will continue to lead in this century just as we did in the last -- smartly, courageously to make the world more peaceful and more safe and more free. and for that i'm grateful. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, madame secretary for was to have to say and for the last quarter years.

the me ask the first question. he gave a comprehensive talk evers andhed on many love made the case for various forms of our power. is there and obama doctrine or a clinton doctrine that ties together and helps explain what it is we should do and how we should do wouit? >> as you can tell, we believe america must continue to be the indispensable nation and the and thateader requires us to lead alone and to build coalitions and networks that will put responsibility with others and expect them to play their role in a rules based

global order. it is not always easy to talk about what we are doing every day everywhere in the world. if you look a what we have done, we have kept faith with that kind of mission. >> all the way in the back. wait for the microphone. >> i am with nbc television. some of the success is attributed to you is many are fixing the relation with arab and muslim world. look at the statistics, the

favoritism is lower compared to the bush administration. what is gone wrong? thank you. >> i have followed closely public opinion and i think it is fair to say the united states for the past decade has not been viewed favorably by a high percentage of the people in any of the countries in the middle east or north africa for a number of reasons. we have a strong support for israel over the many years. this is not the obama administration, clinton administration.

i think it is unfortunate because what the united states stands for is in line with what the arab revolution have been publicly espousing. i think that we have done, and i take responsibility with the government and congress and perhaps the private sector -- we have not done a good job reaching out in a public media way or culturally to explain ourselves. i am always encountering some many conspiracy theories that are made up stuff that the media promotes about the united states that is untrue.

our response is nobody will believe it or we cannot contests it. i think we should be in there every single day. i made a point of reaching out to al jazeera. it was relentlessly negative about us. i said that is inaccurate and deeply unfair. their response was, your government never put anybody on al jazeera. i said that is going to change. you cannot expect a change unless you're not willing to get off the bench. that is our fault. we in our efforts to support democracy still are held

accountable for supporting the government that were there before democracy. you deal with governments of all kinds. highly anyone believes china respects human rights. we did business with other regimes and some of the cause lasting negativity towards us which i thought was unfounded. there are reasons for all the points that you made that go more to the heart of american values. but we can do a better job in refuting some of what people are led to believe. >> alan foreman with the state department. you have outlined an ambitious

program of work for the department of state. tell us about the budgetary that will be required to carry out that agenda? guest: i'm glad he asked the question. with had some success in the first years of my tenure to increase our budgets and our work force to be able to deal with the myriad of challenges and opportunities we face. we are moving into the budget negotiations and a potential sequestration which will be disastrous. people will focus on what sequestration will mean to the military. it's of thousands will lose their jobs -- hundreds of

thousands will lose their jobs. bases will have to be closed. the defense department will have to say, wristy immediate effect and will not only be about our military might. it will be about the economy. there was a decrease military spending as we get prepared for this absurd sequestration idea. the state department, we cannot look at military programs that are producing weapons but we can look at people being furloughed. we can look at cutting back on security, has been a challenge we have inherited over the years and which i tried to explain to the congress. can look at the cutbacks in

passports the american people deserve us to provide and on and on and on. we are 1/13 of the defense apart and budget. will we do affects americans'. it's not just programs over there. it's what we do it through those programs that make it possible for us to have jobs and travel easily. thank you for asking. this is a government wide challenge. i was giving a speech in hong kong and all these sophisticated investors and officials were lined up to say, "is the united states going to default on its credit?" i said we will never do that.

are we going to have- sequestration? are we going to handicap ourselves? i hope andnot. >> diana? >> center for strategic and international studies. i think all of us want to say how honored we are to of had you as our secretary. i'll move on to question. for those who served during the cold war, it was easier to identify american interest. we had more of a moral compass. when you talk about protecting

and advancing american interests, it is becoming more difficult in identifying american interest in a transnational world and the various vested interest groups. what advice do you have to give to your successors in terms of defining american interest and redefining? guest: that is an excellent question. protecting america has to remain a core interest. our security is not negotiable. we have to work better on intelligence so we do not make very unfortunate mistakes. security first and foremost. i don't think any official could put anything before that.

we need an open transparent free market in which americans are able to compete on a level playing field. we can compete, we often can win. the deck has been stacked against us in recent years. state owned enterprises or indigenous protections that are behind the borders and so forth. it is in our interest to help write the rules for the 21st century global economy and to think about mechanisms to enforce those rules. we have to continue to events american values which correspond to universal values. i am reminding my counterparts when i talk about freedom of

expression, freedom of religion, those are not just american values. the world agreed to those values and we are going to stand up for them. it is not always easy. we have to pick our time. on the first level, do what we do because it is in our interests. we have to continue to do that. as you got to the second level, how you adapt that to the world of today requires us to be more we are trying to do that. count during a violent extremism. maybe there are 50,000 violent

homicidal extremist in the world. but they are able to maximize their impact and their messaging through the internet. what we have tried to do is to get in there with them, to undermine them and to rebut them. it is something we did in the cold war. more lessons i think we can transfer from the cold war to today. we don't have some monolithic soviet union. we were engaged in pushing out our ideas and our values, refuting communist propaganda. the cold war ended. "democracy has triumphed. we do not have to do that

anymore." that's a terrible mistake. i have tried to convince congress and others if we do not have an up-to-date broadcasting board of governors we should have won at all. other countries have government messaging that is now predominant in summoning places in the languages of the places. we transport our entertainment around the world, which doesn't always convey our best values. [laughter] we abdicate in investing in it and modernizing what are broadcasting potential could be . are many more examples.

if it look at how successful we were in the cold war, we never went to war with the soviet union or stop negotiating with them. we engage in a lot of sophisticated diplomacy around the world. we supported certain people in elections because they were more democratic than other people. we did a lot. we did so much to help those on the side of democracy and freedom survive beyond the iron curtain. i have a long list of things i would love to see us doing in a modern way that we have not yet adapted to this new time. >>third row. >> immigration reform has been

seen as largely a domestic issue. if you could give us your views on what extent immigration reform will help us deal with other countries and to foster u.s. values abroad. >> my last bilateral meeting was yesterday with the new foreign secretary of mexico. we talked about the benefits to the united states and mexico and all of north america and better integrating our economies, particularly our electricity grid and so much else. immigration reform is the right thing to do for america and for people that are here that have been here for a long time and have made their contributions to this country have been law-

abiding and contributing residents. it is to our benefit with our neighbors to the south. what is happened has been a slowing down of immigration from mexico because as our economy was struggling and jobs were not as available and the mexican economy was growing, people did not come or they went home. to the immigration flows are coming from further south where there's a lot of instability and significant poverty. we have to have this comprehensive immigration reform which means border security and help with border securities further south so we can move on to dealing with the 11 million people who are here and

creating some path to citizenship. that will be a huge benefit to us in the region, not just in mexico but further south. at the same time we need to do more on border security and internal security in central america. we should be proud of the role we played in stabilizing columbia from the drug cartels and the rebels. we have made a lot of progress with mexico. the result that these countries are squeezed. their internal workforce will not have many opportunities once we do immigration reform and once the mexicans get serious about the border. then i think we ought to do more with the central american countries to help them.

>> is spoke about the indispensability of american leadership and how the world will be a worse place. their comments about sequestration. are you optimistic about the policies that will allow us to sustain that kind of leadership? >> absolutely. if you look back, we've done some stupid things. with that all kinds of government sponsored or condoned discrimination against all kinds of people. we have made our mistakes. .t doesn't mean we're perfect we're still trying to form a more perfect union.

look at the sweep of american history. sometimes it takes longer than it should. eventually overcome our discriminatory tennessee's and insecurities and fears. -- tendencies and fears. in my view, it is a view of optimism. >> at the risk of an -- leaving you with an image, john kerry has to fill some very big manolo blahniks. [laughter] [applause] >> that is very good. that is very funny. >> secretary of state comes and gives her farewell address to the state department this

afternoon at 2:00 dirty and we will have live coverage here and cspan. the house is in today for a brief pro forma session. we expect this to be quick and we will go to a live event at georgetown university law center. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c. february 1, 2013. i hereby appoint the honorable andy harris to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by the guest chaplain, reverend andrew heinz, the queen of apostles catholic church in alexandria, virginia. the chaplain: in the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit, amen. almighty and eternal father, we are gathered here as your people and your children. out of love you brought us into

existence. out of love you fashion each and every one of us in our image and likeness. we humbly ask your blessings upon us today as we open this session of congress. grant guidance and wisdom to the members of this congress and of all those in public office. may they always do your will. god, all powerful father, as we go forth today, give us the delight of your holy spirit. bless all of the citizens of this land of the free. may they always seek true freedom and true life. in your loving mercy, keep our great nation and all those who defend it safe from every enemy both foreign and domestic. so that we may rejoice in singing your praises. grant to us your light and peace. and may the lord bless us, protect us from all evil, and bring us everlasting life,

amen. the speaker pro tempore: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, the journal stands approved. the chair will lead the house in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives. sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on january 31, 2013, at 5:34 p.m. that the senate passed without amendment h.r. 325. signed, sincerely, karen l.

haas. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives. sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on january 31, 2013, at 2:00 p.m. appointments, board of trustees of gallon ewe debt university, president's export council, national council on the arts, signed, sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 4 of rule 1, the following enrolled bill was signed by speaker pro tempore upton on tuesday, january 29, 2013. the clerk: h.r. 152, making supplemental appropriation force the fiscal year ending september 30, 2013, to improve

and streamline disaster assistance for hurricane sandy, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house an enrolled bill. the clerk: h.r. 325, an act to ensure the complete and timely payment of the obligations of the united states government until may 19, 2013, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the house stands adjourned until 2:00 p.m. on monday, february >> as you are, the house will return monday at 2:00 p.m. eastern and we will of live coverage here on c-span. this is from george town university law center were campaign officials are preparing to discuss the lessons they've learned from the 2012 campaign and how they may apply to be present congress. >> it is different -- citizens

united is the most in this example so we will talk about that, as well. we have two expert panels today. our first powell run through 12:15 today and that will be composed of a number of campaign operatives that managed to sneak in the building. 12:15-12, 45, we will have a reception here and we will reconvene year sharply at 12: 45 and from 12:45-2:00, we will have a second panel on interest groups and their role in the 2012 campaign cycle and looking ahead to the 100 church -- 113th congress. i will moderate and i will go to them and give them each eight minutes. for their opening remarks and then i will lead a discussion by the panel for about 50 minutes and then we will go to q &a.

a couple of reminders, this is being broadcast live on c-span so be on your best behavior and second, i would ask you all right now to insure that your electronic voices are in the silent position. let me introduce our first panel today which is on the campaign operatives. mullen marshall - marlin marshall served as deputy national field director for the obama reelection campaign. in 2008, he served as field director in nevada, ohio, and arizona for hillary clinton before working in missouri. after the 2008 cycle, mr. marshall service national field director for the democratic congressional campaign committee. he is responsible for managing

regional field directors and the design and implement action -- implementation of targeted field plants across the country and is active in the 04 kerry campaign -- your former boss has found another job recently. [laughter] to his right is anne caprara has served as deputy political director of the campaign committee. she has overseen political operations for senate campaigns in 16 states including a highly competitive races of virginia, indiana, connecticut, wisconsin, florida, and massachusetts. for the 2012 cycle, she achieved a one-acter% win percentage which is pretty empire -- 51 under% win a 100% win

percentage which is pretty impressive. to her right is and the stone. is a veteran political operative -- to write is andy stone. is the communications director for the house majority pac, a super pak focused on electing democrats to the house. he's involved in all internal and an external communications. to his right, we have john rogers, the deputy political director of the national republican congressional committee, the nrcc and director of the nrcc strategy department which handles data, poland, and targeting. he started by working for new york governor the tacky and in

the years since -- governor pataki. he has worked at the national level as well. i would welcome a to them and thank them for their time and with that, i will go to marlin marshall, recently of barack obama's reelection campaign, for opening comments that thank you for coming and thank you for inviting me today. >> i'm originally from st. louis, missouri by way of kansas. i apologize in advance. i will not take eight minutes because i cannot talk about myself for eight minutes. i will be brief. i got involved in politics at

the university of kansas and that inspired me into this profession because i believe you can make change. it was really 2002 when i got involved in my first race in kansas and there i learned to make a difference by organizing communities across the country and that is why i started this business. this past cycle was awesome. from my standpoint but i think one of the things i would like to discuss today with you all as we continue this is what worked and what did not work. there is money in politics now

and the pacs affect everything. at the end of the day, i think candidate campaigns matter. use of that with this presidential election. we put a lot of resources and infrastructure and organize communities on the ground in every state in the country and it was successful. having that infrastructure is extremely important. that is kind of why i have done field work since i got involved in this business and why i continue to do that. it has been a joy to be involved in politics and we need to discuss some of the money in politics right now and how we continue to make changes across the country on the field decided with many things happening in the media as well so i look forward to this discussion. >> i am also not going to speak for eight minutes. the questions are much more

entertaining and useful in a format like this. i am from suburban philadelphia and i got my start in politics when i was 3-years old when my dad was running for a local republican office and i found out quickly when i was handed out brochures that i cried when the democrats would not take a brochure, they would then take it and my dad never fails to remind me now that i made big democrat. i went to the other university in washington, d.c., american, so i have been here since about 1997. i have been involved in campaigns. i worked at emily's list. and then i worked for congresswoman betty sutton in ohio and congresswoman betsy markie in ohio. it has been a real education and in the last two years, i've gotten a chance to work on senate races around the country.

i did the east and there were two of us and i did wisconsin east so i have a full half of the country for the 2012 cycle. it was a fascinating two years to be in politics. i would echo what marlon said that campaigns matter. i would love to talk about that even with a gigantic influx of money, the basic fundamental elements of campaigns still very much matter. i actually think there is an inverse relationship to the amount of money that comes in. i think the more television commercials we have, the more media get back its permit people, the more important it becomes to adhere to the basics and remember you have to come to the race with the right candidate for the wright state for the right time and not forget those things in an effort to push somebody in who

you think might not win. i love my time at the dscc are started in 2011 and my first day was the week after we had essentially recruited now senator joe donnelly into the race in indiana. he was the first race that i really get working on. it was a joy to see how you construct a campaign in a very red states, in a state that mr. romney won in 2012. joe a wonderful human being and very much an indiana guy. when we talk about all the states where we want senate races, we had candidates that that the profile of the state, not necessarily the profile of the national democratic party. all of my colleagues take a great deal of pride that this senate class just got sworn in

and it includes four people you put in a room and they may disagree as that much as they agree on something but they all work towards the ideals that our party holds dear. we were really proud to be part of the group that helped elect them last year. i will stop talking and we will take questions. >> i'd like to begin by saying that with all due respect to anne, as a proud colonial, she forgot about george washington university which is located here in the nation's capital. i got my start in politics working also on john kerry's campaign in a number of capacities in new hampshire for eight months leading up to the primary where i learned a valuable lesson and was here in d.c. during the general. i worked at the democratic congressional campaign

committee in the west in the 2010 cycle which was everything west of the rockies. i spent some time on the senate side as well a. been a house majority pac spent. i want to take you all back to the 2010 cycle when we saw, in so many house races across the country, marlon felt the same sinking feeling in the -- in his stomach -- we saw democrats are running competitive races against republican candidates and we were overwhelmed at the last minute by an influx of outside republican money. it was largely from groups like crossroads. house majority pac formed in april, 20007 that that does not happen again. we should not be caught off guard like that. they need back up so they can run the fundamentals of their

own campaign. there is a clear role for candidates to play. there's a cure -- a clear role for the party committee to play but house majority pac sees itself as an organization that can help level the playing field. we work with basically three goals -- to elect democrats to the house, to compete with the right way in and outside groups, and also, and this is the big one -- to coordinate with other groups, other progressive groups and other democratic groups that have long been active in electoral politics but have a certain amount of money to spend. house majority pac is the cpnjvener of the coalition in many cases. you might have a union interested in a particular race

or other organizations and we will help share information, do polling, and share that information with the other group and make sure that everybody has a role to play everybody plays to their strengths. if you look at the outside spending in 2010 house races -- i mean all the outside groups which exempts the candidates and party committees -- republican outside groups spend about $73 million to the $26 million so that the democratic outside group spent -- we close that gap this last cycle so that there was about $107 million spent by republicans and $87 million spent by democrats. house majority pac spam to about $36 billion on its own and we invested in a significant way in

52 house races across the country and the democrats were victorious its 63% of the spirit of the 10 races, the most money, democrats court successful in eight. we learned the value of coordination and cooperation all of our allies. let me give you an example -- there is a district in illinois, the number 17 district, which includes three medium areas. it is the western part of the state. there is a democrat that was victorious bear this cycle. house majority pac worked with many local groups that were on the ground to help insure that we were competing effectively against the outside money that was coming in from groups like crossroads and several others.

we did a series of polls that works together and at the beginning, we reserve time with seiu. we were still facing significant challenges. afscme came in and did advertising and seiu did additional advertising and emily's list targeted women in the district and all the coordination worked. in terms of the advertising, one of the lessons we take away from 2012 as the value of making your tv reservations early. if you make your tv reservations early, you can lock in a lower rate. outside groups are spending more on -- are charged a higher rate than candidates. candidates, by law, get the lowest rates possible.

if you go back and look at several of the races where the house majority pac was involved -- one was california 52, san diego, with scott peters. i looked at what we spent in that race for is what americans for tax reform spent in that race. we paid half of what atr spent for the same amount of television advertising. the value of preserving that time early is important. in terms of moving forward in the 2014 cycle, some things we are looking for that we might be concerned about or we find challenging -- obama drop-off. people might have voted in the election that might not vote in an off-year election.

in districts where obama is one and democrats have traditionally won but those districts were still represented by republicans are natural targets for us. i will turn over to my colleagues here and stop talking >> good morning. i am not from washington school. i work for the national republican congressional committee known as the nrcc, i'm from upstate new york. at 7 years old, i started volunteering on campaigns from a completely a political family. it just kind of happened. i went to school for business and then politics kind of found in may, is the best way to say that. i started interning at the governor's office and have been volunteering for the new york state party and the new york republican committee. i am from a blue states so i

learned the hard way in tough places and on top panels, as well. i'm the only republican on the stage today. i work for governor george pataki in new york during a few jobs there and went out and worked on all levels on campaigns over the course of 12 years. i went from the election level to the presidential level. i found my way here after a couple of dust -- tough races in 2009 and 2010. one was a county executive race in westchester county and york. -- in a new york. we found a way to win that by 14

points and a heavily democratic area. there was also a state senate race. a democrat should win that seat by 12 points and narrowly lost that a recount. -- that in a recount. i worked primarily in the northeast but covered 14 states. the first and i said that to somebody in kentucky, they wondered what i was talking about. i learned that quickly. i covered kentucky to maine and that a fund last cycle and had some good wins. there was a win on our side that nobody believed in. there is a seat being vacated by anthony wiener in new york city and i was left that for spending time on it because it is a heavily democratic seat. it has been held that way since

the early 1900's. we managed to pull that one off and were quite impressed. i had a lot of fun and learned lot last cycle. the take away not so much from the 2010 cycle but from watching what the obama campaign did to we are more on the social media side and you can say the ground operations would be a lesson learned by seeing what they did. you guys did a great job. for that, it was more of a harsh reminder for a lesson for our side to go out and planned. and be ready for this and build a bigger organization and be ready for when the time comes. one of the other things that the obama campaign did well as how they managed data. that was a big success.

and how they managed their targeting and were able to get different components of data that a normal campaign would store in different places and they put it together into one system that works together and was more synergistic, if that is a word. i think that was a big lesson learned for us. it is a good lesson on how they manage their data and have a link to what they were doing and social media and their ground operations and having it in one place was a good thing. they definitely had a great operation. we learned a lot from that and what they did and how they targeted that. on the target in front, our message, when i think of a romney message, it was more

spread out than the obama message and they're getting a more focused message to a smaller universe of people. on the republican side, for the presidency, it was a much more spread out a message to a wider audience. i think that was a big lesson learned for us. i am looking forward to the conversation. thank you very much for having me. >> i would like to thank my colleagues here on the panel for all of you coming in well under your a minute allocation. [laughter] * clearly not serving on a panel with other law professors. >> you can tell we are not politicians. >> you all are the ones that do the work behind the scenes. let me start off with a couple of questions to stimulate our discussion. we just had election.

we just had a new congress is sworn in last month and the president was or read-and are rated. the question everybody has this point is who is the front runner for the presidency in 2016? [laughter] it's gotta be the hottest issue. politics is a futures market and you're always thinking about who will be in power next time around? >>andy is thinking of running. >> in all seriousness, my clinic students here today will know that i encourage them to analyze policy with an lp 4 framework which is in ackerman which names -- an acronym which means block, process and the next p is policy which dries that process and the next p is

politics. we can understand politics drives policies. the final p is personalities. what are they like? the new start with these elements of this framework. let's start with the law. andy stone had ansome in gauging opening comments with regard to his experience in 2010 and in the 2012 cycle. i can see a page filled only with members. i feel at home here.

so as andy stone was talking, i was thinking about this. citizens united is of obvious importance to you. i want to start with the other members of the panel. how has citizens united change what you do? other other aspect that do not get as much ink but have a big impact on how you go about doing what you do? >> i was on the losing side in 2010 and now the winning side in 2012. . work with andy when one back to look, there had been a ton of early spending by

outside groups. from the beginning of the summer to the traditional time -- you save your money for the last two or three weeks to spend on tv. you cannot do that anymore. there is so much spending that is happening early on. there is an early vote in many states. the traditional election date in colorado is maybe 10%-20% of the electorate is voting on election day. spreading at your media over a time frame has become more of the norm and we were not there in 2010. we didn't realize the extent it was softening up our candidate

on till the last two months of the race. we knew it was coming in 2012. an example would be ohio. we knew this was a state a lot of people were focused on. we know there would be a lot of outside spending. i would go back to what we said at the beginning. that was a state where candidates mattered a great deal. senator brown versus mandell. no matter how much money got thrown against sherrod, he was able to run a very well done campaign. they organized at the beginning of the cycle. they hired top flight

communications people and field people. they invested a tremendous amount of people in a good new media program. it was media. social media. there were yielding millions of dollars for the race. i alluded to this at the beginning. the more money that gets thrown into a race, the diminishing returns you have. once a voter sees 10,000 points of a negative again somebody, they get to a point where they turn it off. the guy who knocks on the door who talks about the senator or president obama has a great deal more evidence than a lot of these tv ads. one of the other things we saw

with groups like crossroads in 2012 -- did a tremendous job. in 2012, it was a lot more, here is the message and we're running it in ohio and virginia and massachusetts -- not massachusetts. we can look at those ads and see wn's nameulled bro out and put tim kaine's name in. the environment that the state in.rently exists an how we communicate our message to the media. we did that in every forum that we had. stoodll step out -- ohio

out. >> i will speak about this quickly from organizing standpoints. you talk about the neighbor contacts. i do believe campaigns started earlier and media started earlier. that's when things are getting a lot of attention. i have the assumption the airwaves would be flooded more septhan ever before post- pos ember. we had to be ready before that. "we know this is going on on tv. let me tell you the real thing about the president." i think the new way that super

pacs works makes it even more relevant than before. there is so much media and so many different ways of getting it. telling you about the race becomes that much more importance. that also has to start earlier. you can i get to july and decide you're in the wrong field campaign and expect to be off and running in a month. a lot of pieces of the campaign is moving earlier to prepare for different ways to get your message out. you have to get it out in different ways. >> anne and marlon plus super

pacs increased the importance of field. john rogers, is that your thoughts as well? >> it could be. i'm not sure it is a massive move. everything is moving earlier. the vote is moving earlier. folks are reaching a saturation point. if i can jump in on the other points. the nrcc and the national organization's work a little bit different than the house majority pac and that creates its own challenges. with can coordinate and the outside groups.

we are not allowed to communicate with them. we have to put up a wall and we cannot communicate with them anymore. that creates a whole series of challenges on our side where we have to read the tea leaves as to what is going on so lonely place our buys we're not doing that at the same time as the other groups and telling the story in a different way. so that at some point nobody is on tv. when we place media, it is publicly available information. we can go in and see when that is. when crossroads' makes a reservation, we can see when that is.

it makes buying more tricky. just to make sure everything is moved on the part. they can talk to each other. it does create some challenges on our side. yes. on the earlier campaign. , we are in the same boat. we got there a little bit earlier. i think that was coming off of 2000 ma8. if i was sitting on the panel in 2010, we would have said the lessons learned were -- >> mm-hmm. can i make a point about the early reservation? i was talking before for by

financial perspective. i think it speaks to help candidates may operate in the new environment. when any candidate is making a reservation, it is published. there was a reservation in a particular district and the house majority pac made a reservation two two prior, we could try to extend that buy. we went and reserved weeks 5 and 6. the candidates are looking at that as well. they will be for the last six weeks on tv and that i can start earlier so i can be communicated with voters as well. >> i would echo that. >> a theme of the comments is

this phenomenon. everything is shifting earlier and earlier in the process. this is something we have seen in the long term. we have seen this over the last couple of cycles. shifting our focus from the 2012 election cycle and looking ahead to the 11th congress, how early do think it is going to get -- the 113th congress. i will say how early should it get? make anot going to predictive statement. you can devise from what you will. >> i will add to that. the first week of january i was

traveling for the campaign. from the folks on the panel where you're spending your off your getting your closets cleaned out and prepping for what is going to happen. there's no down time really. you have a month and a half after the election where people are still recovering and you are taking your vacations. time is such a precious commodity and it is becoming more and more to claim. we're hiring campaign managers for 2014 races. the vast majority have been hired. should it be this way? that is a difficult question.

it is very difficult to run 24 months of message. you are spending a great deal of time campaigning. candidates spent a great deal of time fundraising and preparing. whether or not that is good for democracy, i will leave that to higher authorities. the time line becomes quicker election.er with each time lin >> i think that there is a natural point which is labor day. before that, a lot of folks are not tuned in. the see the same thing with the tv schedule. we are not seeing the hot shows

august.ng in beginnin i think there is a natural barrier. it might get louder if anything rather than going into the first week of august. i think we'll see a smaller playing field on the house side with more money being spent. instead of getting a longer time frame, i think you'll see deeper. tv is bought in points. a thousand points is 100%. that means your message is done. in a lot of places where it is expensive, $600,000 a point to

buy tv. we get a message over two weeks, 500 points week. you will see more money spent on fewer races. you will double the amount of commercials you are seeing. i think there is a natural barrier to when people start paying attention. >> i think if everybody is right that things are starting earlier. at the end of the day, i think you can debate and have a conversation. if things are starting earlier in means that candidates are engaging with voters. i don't see how that is bad. >> let me follow-up on that.

john talked about the process getting louder and deeper. marlon mention some attributes of this. let's put this in the context of what the obama campaign did so effectively. both sides have been trying to do since then, to expand the electorate, to bring people into the potential of voting pool who have not been there before. marlon, let me start with you. give me your view on that and that i want to go to john. >> i think u.s. seen an expansion in the last four years and i think there's room to grow.

>> where? >> everywhere. eat makeup of the country is changing. there's a lot of work that can still be done to get people and. i think we can still register people to vote. i think there's a lot to do. there's still a lot of work to bring people into the process. >> john. >> i agree it is not reached its max and that they can expand further. there is room for growth across the board. does it get there? who knows.

you do reach a point of diminishing returns. it will take time to get even further. he did a great job pushing based on what your resources were financially and with bodies on the ground. you were able to expand and we saw some contraction on our side. if i can jump over to a different point, let's presume there is a smaller playing field. the campaigns and organizations will spend money on things they do not traditionally spend money on. you will see more investment on data and digital.

the tv will get deeper but you'll see expansion in the other components as well. >> the way we communicate with the electric -- electric has changed dramatically. it was just like you will send an e-mail and tried to raise money off of that. we tell candidates the need to create a conversation from the day they start running. one of the best pieces of communication was one elizabeth warren was running in massachusetts. she got on a stage and she snapped a photo. they put that up on twitter and sent it out.

it was part of a dialogue. you cannot be here but that all the people that are. claire mccaskill uses twitter. is not necessarily a staff member who is tweeting. i can point to examples where using that portion of social media to communicate a message and to create a dialogue to cater the expectation that voters do not just want to know what your position is on an issue. aey want to know if you're politician that they like. tweeting pictures of your dog and talking about your family have all become part of the way that we communicate with voters. i cannot underestimate the

amount of change that has brought on the way that we do campaigns. he used to be your introductory was whenever they decided to run second ad. videos and communication and tweets and text messages and stuff that was not part of the political culture six years ago. that has changed the way we do these campaigns and the way we expand the electorate. i knew that barack obama was going to be a big deal in 2007 because my brother called me up and said, "i heard about this guy with his funny name and he sounds cool." he read about him on the

internet. he went out and register to vote. the possibilities are endless. expanding the electorate goes in every direction in every state and we will continue to do it. >> it is not just changing the way we campaign but the way we govern. you see the way the president reaches out to the american people now is fantastic, the way they use digital and social media from a governing standpoint. that is equally as important to get people involved in the process. >> i would like to go to questions now. we have microphones on both sides of the stage. people should feel free to step

forward. >> i have two questions. i know some of your colleagues. whether you find your jobs relevant anymore with the advent and the grip of campaign consultants. i worked on senator chambliss' campaign. it seems the journalists have more sway. they'll go for ad buys. >> you work there? >> i worked in research.

with pac money and the fiasco with nobody having sway from the haveonal office, do rpd's any sway with the advent of consultants? second, it seems like we're hearing about e-campaigns. what are the chairmen ready to do it in developing those networks and hiring people? i know john randall used to be there. getting somebody to come then -- the republicans have ellen of talent on that side by not using it. >> to your first question, is

the role relevant. rpd is standard industry term for the job i had last cycle. what i think i've seen is there is not as many gc's as the use today. gc rpd's are filling in more roles -- gc is general consultant that talks to the candidate and answers the phone at 2:00 a.m. out there.ewer gc's more campaigns want to save money for tv and mail. are getting a bigger

role. i think the model in the past was somebody that ran two or three campaigns -- a lot of the resumes had managed five races and add managed multiple more. i was acting as the general consultant in a lot of places and taking calls from candidates at literally 2:00 a.m. in the morning and was steering the ship in a lot of places. we don't put that out as much. that's not my nature. we were heavily involved in a lot of this. you get a mix of campaigns that listen to the national campaigns that do not want to have anything to do with us.

i started in january of 2011 and was surprised at the level of cooperation that we had. people were telling me what to do. i was surprised at how open everybody was in working with me. i have the northeast race in westchester which came some street cred. and the turner race in new york nine that i was heavily involved in. word got out. "this is the guy that did the turner race. i am going to listen." it has become more relevant. >> i agree. i would say there is a diminishing role for general consultants all around.

there are some differences with the parties. i didn't want to take too many shots at john. we are still a very big part of these campaigns and of the organization. you are seeing the party committees at the republican side becoming -- their importance becoming the minister. karl rove is running both cam mps -- role camps. we have a great staff. we are led by great executive director, guy cecil. we have all been part of the campaigns. the hiring is critical.

i was pleased with the work i was able to do with the managers that we had. "our only goal is to help you it behooves us all for you to win and run a good campaign. i do think there is a tremendous amount of attention on both sides of the aisle as to how the campaigns are built and who's coming in early. when you have a good consulting team and there are many great consultant on the democratic side who played a large role in the campaigns of but also a acknowledged that your field guy on the ground was telling you that the ad they are running is resonating are not. i was in a dozen campaign cycle grid that was talked about.

the big-time media consultant was going what is your field guy saying? it's becoming more difficult with the rise of superpac's. there are outside entities that have a role in the campaign cycle. we don't necessarily have the primary struggles that republicans have. i think we are able to play a greater role in these races. i did not find that we got pushed out of the room or that there was not any relevance to the job. what we were able to bring to the table, i would sit on an average of 12 conference calls per week, which was turbot. for different campaigns. so that i could talk to a race in wisconsin about what a race in virginia or ohio or pennsylvania or florida was doing and to say this is effective and you should give it a try, or stay away from this

because it's not working for them. i think they all value to that. i think that'll continue in the future. >> i just want to jump in. the role of the committees. the outside groups are not legally able to communicate with the campaigns. it is not like the outside groups are coming in and talking to the campaigns and taking over where a party committee -- they're basically just are running television commercials. i don't know that the outside group structure is really a diminishing throughout the campaign. i was on enough calls at 2:00 in the morning. i find that hard to believe. i personally have interviewed probably 70% of the campaign managers that rehired on the challenger races and some incumbent races in my region. i beg to differ. i think that the the what does

not really allow for them to take over the whole thing. it is technically not how it would work. >> i guess i would say the struggle over moving the file out of the rnc struggle, in the senate we did feel there was a step back from the national republican senate committee on a lot of those primaries, on a lot of issues where you did have outside groups saying we prefer this candidate to this one and that created a struggle. >> this is armageddon to and differences. are very involved in house races and it has little to do with the republican senatorial committee and the rnc, we do know those folks. but i will not speak to that. your second question, which is the money getting toward data or

digital, i think that our new chairman greg walden is great. i think you guys it would really enjoy if he were on this stage. he's a little more fun than i am. i think that you will see not even a renewed effort by an effort in that direction. we have built a strategy department that is going to handle data and targeting and polling and fixing some of what went wrong in 2012, another lesson learned. now the department specifically geared towards that. at the time when you were there, there was a one-person digital shop. before you were there, we had none. now we have a digital empire over there. every day they seem to be hiring a new person to do this.

that's a big lesson learned for us. what the obama campaign did in digital does not directly relate to us, because we are running a host of house races and not one race for president, but we did learn a lot from seeing what they did. there is going to be a very concerted effort that i will not get into the details of, because i'm the only republican on the stage. [laughter] >> that was funny. >> i want to make sure we can get to other questions. i also got my start in 2004 in new york city. i heard a lot of talk about the way 2010 will affect races in the future and whether it is the way the president to map shakeout or state control. to what extent do you think 2010 in the nextrelevant

cycle? >> it is still relevant for us because we still exist. we feel we learned a lesson of what happened in 2010 and 2012 successfully from our perspective and we will continue to do that in the future. >> i think it will be relevant in that turnout in presidential years and turnout in off years it historically has always been different numbers. case by case, of course. as a whole, you've got to look to the 10-cycle and the 6-cycle to get what your model is going into 2014. and you have to look at what happens in presidential years. it will be relevant just from a standpoint of that is going to be closer from a turnout perspective than what eight years or 12 -- 2008 or 2012

repeats itself. >> if they renewal of the political maps, 2012 being the first time we aren't going to see that. i prepare is still some understanding that we all can do things and see how that plays out and how it will look in 2013, to understand that deeper. it will be interesting. >> other questions? >> thank you. imat the new america foundation. i've nothing new in a long time. i lived on the hill for a number of years. i might sound a little cranky with this question. i appreciate. you all coming appreciate i have real worries about what is going on in what you have conveyed. i agree expanding the electorate is important for self determination. it also seems like the parallel is the 24 hour news cycle and the damage it has done to

investigative reporting and journalism and what a year-long campaign cycle is quantity to our institutions of governing. i think that has really been so far kind of a disaster for congress especially for legislative branch, not so much for the executive branch, which has a better immune system for its own policy making displays. but congress right now is given 800 more% contact an outside world and is operating at 1979 levels of staff. so it does not have humans to filter the noise. i think you have seen this over and over. it certainly happened last year where the threat was to shut down the internet. mcclean policy comes out of that. we don't have the experts in the

room, because you cannot crowd source policy-making like you can elections, voting. it requires expertise and timing. it is a much different kind of participation in civic life. i am wondering how are we going to make this distinction, given the technology, between sentiment and substance? the sentiment, which is heavy on the campus ensign for getting people out, and substance, which is required for making unsexy long-term policy? it is like critical in infrastructure. a lot of that step is getting killed right now. what is the happy medium between all this great political technology and civic technology? it's really not going to give us what we want at the end of the day, if we keep going like this. >> it's a tough question, but i

hear what you are saying. were the balance comes, i don't know, because the tremendous - amount of citizen contacts that we have now. when i worked on the hill, it could get overwhelming at times. we were debating the health care bill, debating stimulus bills, and when you have thousands of phone calls coming in during the course of a day, when you have thousands of e-mails. everytime you turn on the television, somebody screaming in your ear on one side or the other, it becomes very difficult for an average member of congress. i think everybody on this panel would say the number of really good people who care about policy and substance on capitol hill does far outnumber the ones who don't. it's just that the ones who don't are the ones that shout the loudest. i could point to democrats and

republicans where i would say our courageous, wonderful people who tried to filter through the noise. i think the solution to what we see right now is really electing really good people. i was proud to work on the massachusetts senate race last year. i have a tremendous amount of respect for senator boren. i think she brings a lot of substance to that job. elizabethr dian warren. going for, my only real solution is to elect really good people who can say at times, i worked for red state, read district member in 2010 and the health care bill was a loud, contentious, very politically difficult fight to have. -- red district. one of the proudest moments i've ever had was that member came to

me and said "i cannot live with myself if i voted against this bill." whenever the political consequences, that bill passed and i think we will survive moving record. those are the people that we need in congress. i don't see much of another solution to it other than. >> i know the internet is not going away or the cable news. you can watch events happen lives, and the instant reaction to everything. you don't even have a chance to separate from the moment, because everybody is passing judgment on what is happening. i hear what you are saying. >> it lines up extremely well with the new data. the pew research center yesterday indicated 50% --

rather 56 percent of americans say that current members of congress are to blame for the legislature's sinking favorability rating and 32% of those polled believe the political system itself is irrevocably broken. i would like to ask the members of the panel would you agree with that? are the people right, is the people that our system is generating and not necessarily the system generating them? >> you are looking at me? [laughter] i feel like i have been monopolizing the microphone. >> anybody can jump on this. >> i'm not going to argue whether or not they are right or wrong. it is a poll, a snapshot in time of our people are feeling. you cannot really argue whether or not the feeling is right or

wrong. i cannot argue with them. that's how they feel. polling is one of the things we saw in the 2012 cycle is not always an accurate picture. that is one of our lessons learned. [laughter] although it may have been for my democratic friends on this panel this last cycle. i cannot speak to whether or not they are right or wrong. >> here's what i will say. i do think, and this goes back to your statement about candidates matter. i think change comes from the grassroots up. the more we are out there organizing, the better. when you have people organize around an issue whether it be an election or otherwise, that creates power. we have hundreds of thousands or

millions of volunteers out there. that's a result of the obama campaign. a lot of those folks are interested in running for office. if we had people who went out and volunteered 20 hours to 40 hours a week for the president who now want to run for mayor or city council or county commissioner. that's how this begins. the more emphasis that we put on electing the those folks, better. >> the last word before we break for lunch. >> he's been waiting for that. >> i think what you have said is right. the fundamental about democracy is a change comes from the ground up. if you don't like what's going on, the power you have devotes a particular person into or out of

office. you are making a value statement about what you believe in by casting your vote. that's the ultimate answer. it's not a simple answer. it might not be in and immediately satisfying answer, but i think it's the answer. >> we will take a 30 minute break and have a reception opposite. we will be back sharply at 12:45. join me in thanking our panel for being with us. [applause] >> bringing you live coverage of this georgetown -- bringing you live coverage of this discussion from georgetown university law center on lessons learned from the 20 per of

campaign and how they might apply to the current congress. we will have more in a half-hour when the focus will turn to interest groups. live coverage beginning at 12:45 eastern. if you missed any of our coverage, you will be able to see it shortly in the c-span video library at c-span.org. we are learning this morning that energy secretary stephen chu is stepping down. the energy department says that he offered his resignation to president obama. he won a nobel prize in physics, but came under questioning for his handling of a solar energy loans. he was widely expected to leave following the president's reelection last fall. he will resign once a successor is confirmed. the associated press reported along with a number of sources that energy secretary chu will be stepping down. coming up this afternoon, secretary of state hillary clinton will give her peril addressed to the state department this afternoon. that will be at 2:30 eastern. we will have live coverage on c- span.

right now, washington journal from this morning, a discussion on the trust deficit that has occurred in this country as americans have lost faith in major institutions such as government and the financial sector. host: this is john hilsenrath from the wall street journal, the chief economics correspondent. gyou wrote a piece about how the trust deficit is hurting the economy. guest: we don't usually talk about trust deficit. we talk about budget deficits and trade deficits, things we can measure. what i'm talking about is a breakdown of trust in american society, in particular in the institutions that make our economy go. when you look at measures of trust from surveys by gallup or pew that americans have been some very important institutions including the media, newspapers, television, congress, banks, or

corporations, public schools, public unions, they have all been going down for many years. for a lot of them, this decline in trust intensified leading up to and going into the. financial the there are a lot of reasons for these things we could talk about. what i am getting at in this story is this matters to the economy when trust breaks down. a nobel prize-winning economist named arrow said 40 years ago every commercial transaction has within it an element of trust. when you trust your counterpart, you are more likely to engage in that transaction. when people become suspicious of each other and each other's intentions, it has a way of slowing down economic -- of holding back economic activity, of making people less willing to engage in transactions with each other. there are many different examples of that. one of the most glaring ones is

what we've seen between congress and the white house in the last couple years. we talk a lot about ideological differences between republicans and democrats, but there really are fundamental trust problems between the two sides. as a result, we see every few months we're having these budgets practices that way on the market and the economy. that is because these two sides really have deep skepticism about engaging with each other to do deals. host: connect the dots to look at how that trust happens and how that works out economically. guest: a couple examples. republicans and democrats. uncertainties about the deficit right now really have weighed on markets in the last couple years. they could be weighing on confidence of businesses and households. a lot of surveys show that. if the two sides trusted each

other more, they might be able to come to some budget agreement long-term. we see it in the actual economy as well in a lot of places. one of the most glaring example is the mortgage market. during the bubble you had banks handing over mortgages and people could just write down whenever they wanted for their income and they got a mortgage. you had mortgages going into mortgage-backed securities that investors just trusted the ratings, the credit ratings on these securities. then of course the securities, lot of them collapsed. trust in that market really broken-down during the financial crisis. what we have seen since then are many layers of mistrust. if you talk to people out there who are trying to refinance a mortgage for getting a mortgage, they will tell you about all the

paperwork they have to go through. there's been months and months of scrutiny they go through to refinance a loan. host: is there a sense of why do i trust the bank anyway? guest: there is mistrust on every side. the borrower does not trust the bank, but the bank does not trust the bar. the bank wants to see every piece of evidence that it can that it has in come. it's not just between the bar w -- borrowers and the banks but between the banks and fannie mae and freddie mac. who asked to hold the mortgage if the mortgage goes that? this has held back the banks doing more mortgages. in the old days they expected to just sell the mortgages to fannie mae or freddie mac. over the last couple years there's been a problem called putbacks, but the banks are afraid fannie mae and freddie

mac will give the mortgages back to them if they find any documentation problems. this is one of the reasons we have been in the environment the last couple years where the federal reserve has pushed interest rates really low. you would think that would help to get the mortgage market going, but didn'it has been very slow to recover. there have been signs of progress. we are starting to see some mortgage writing happening, but it's been a very slow recovery, in part because all these different layers of the mortgage writing process, trust account. host: trust as an element of the economy. our guest wrote about it and you can ask him questions about it for the next few minutes. john hilsenrath joins us from the wall street journal until 8:30. here's how you can reach out to him --

you can send us a tweet -- or reach out to us on facebook. or send us an e-mail. if trust is a rebuilding exercise, are all sides becoming more trusting equally? guest: there are several things going on here. we have gone through several financial crises in the last few years, not just the mortgage crisis and the housing crisis but the technology blurs before that, so that caused trust to be lost. we have also had some longer-run trends which i think are affecting the social media being one of them. it used to be that a few big media organizations dominated the airwaves. now we have a world filled with investigative reporters. there are no longer run trends at play.

what we are seeing is some signs that we might be seen early signs of recovery in some areas. i will give you a few examples. the mortgage market, we have seen banks starting to increase their mortgage portfolios. i mentioned at securitization markets where mortgages get thrown into mortgage-backed securities. that market is still in pretty bad shape, but we have seen other securitization markets or auto loans get put into securities or credit cards. those have started to come back. so that's a sign maybe people are getting -- investors are getting some faith in these markets. another one that is important is ipo's. when you look at measures of household trust in the stock market, it has really been damaged by all the volatility we have seen the stock market in the last few years. that affected the ability of companies to raise capital.

ipo's have been weighed down. last year we saw a pickup in initial public offerings. we might be seen some improvements. in some of the surveys, there's a public relations firm named e -- edelman which did a survey of trust and that started to pick up a little in 2012. i think there's a long way to go. i dig there's a lot of things that different players have to do to regain trust. host: you talked about a survey about a percentage of americans who have a lot of confidence in the following -- guest: absolutely. i should say that newspapers are down there as well. i write for a newspaper. it is humbling to see this. i think every journalist, every congressman, every banker needs

to think about what this means, why is happening, and what they need to do to win back the trust of the people who are looking to their service. host: what kind of face to the entities have to put on to reestablish trust? guest: is it face court action, -- is it face or action? some of these things we are seeing are part of life now. in the media, the fact of the matter is the wall street journal is competing on a landscaped with social media with a lot of blogs, with a lot of start-ups on the internet who are bringing different perspectives on stories. there is constant challenges to our credibility. what do people have to do -- what kind of face to they have

to put on to win back trust? i think you have to behave in trust bworthy ways. there are a lot of internet sites right now that are scrutinizing what the wall street journal does. i think that's really good, but sometimes you see people in that realm not behaving in trustworthy ways, just taking numbers and running with them without calling up sources to find out what is really behind it. it is a free-for-all in many respects. host: we are talking about the economy and trust and other elements with our guest. michael is a democrat in pennsylvania. thanks for waiting. caller: i like to look at things in parallels. the way i see it, the way our government is going right now is the way the steel wheels meant -- the steel mills went.

everybody says. cut the says no. we've got to fix our roads and water systems. we have to spend money in order to save money. you put people back to work by doing those things, you will cut deficits. look what happened to the steel mills. the steel mills went under in this country basically because they did not reinvest in their company. we need to reinvest in our country before it is too late. thank you. host: there are debates on capitol hill about which avenue to take, whether to cut spending or invest in our government. guest: that is at the core of what democrats and republicans are arguing about. this is not really a question of trust from my perspective. maybe it is. two sides are talking past each other. what we need is some kind of long run plan to address the budget deficit.

it is the case that the economy needs more investment and more growth in the short run, but it is also the case, any shards of long run entitlement commitments that the united states has found itself to, it's not sustainable. something has to be done over the course of the next 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 years to address the entitlement commitments that we have made. as far as the steel mills go, a lot of the manufacturing parts of the economy, and detroit is a good example, there were commitments that big manufacturers made it to have long run health care coverage of employees that in the long run they cannot afford. the need to invest in the short run, but also have a plan for dealing with deficits in the long run. you cannot ignore it.

host: justin, independent line, in maryland. caller: speaking from a position of relative ignorance, i am only 18 years old, but i have been looking into recently the federal reserve and its policies and how they affect the economy. i have been studying the wealth cycles of our history since the inception of currency. i want to know what's your take is on the federal reserve transparency act and if you think that will negatively or positively impact trust and confidence which people and the banks. i think a lot of people, as you said, with social media and online blogs, are starting to realize this whole system been based on debt and government borrowing money for interest is essentially a system built to fail and that everyone is in debt for it.

host: thank you. guest: let's start with the federal reserve. one of the institutions whose credibility has been damaged -- was damaged by the financial crisis, clearly was the federal reserve. in the 1990's and earlier part of this decade, alan greenspan, a former chairman of the fed, was revered and was seen as a person -- the fed was seen as an institution that was guiding the economy with perfect foresight. there was very low inflation and we had decent growth and people revered the federal reserve. the financial crisis changed all that. there was a lot of skepticism and scrutiny about what the fed is doing today. that's probably for the better, because as it turned out, the fed got a free pass during -- in

the years leading up to the financial crisis. there are some bigger questions about what is it doing today. i don't know if you want to get into that, the low interest-rate policies that the fed is engaged in today to get the economy going. that goes beyond the realm of trust. host: but the idea of transparency, even ron paul is calling for ways to bring more transparency to the federal reserve actions, to affect the people at large. guest: let's talk about fed transparency. in the 1980's it used to be the case that when the federal reserve decided to change the short-term interest rates, but went into the markets secretive leader and bought a certain number bonds in order to affect short-term interest rates and they did not tell anybody what they were doing.

there were few very well-paid guys on wall street who looked at what the corps reserve did in many markets and had decided that the total reserves had cut short-term interest rates. i will give you some examples. federal reserve meets every six weeks. they put out a statement right after that meeting saying what decisions they made and how they see the economy, who voted for and against the decision. push-out minutes of what was discussed in the meeting three weeks after the fact. it takes them five years to put out transcripts of the meeting, but we never see transcripts of meetings that happen in congress behind closed doors. the fed has a balance sheet which has grown extremely large. the fed puts out its balance sheet every we. every weekday updates what is in their holdings. that is something no american corporation does. the fed was criticized rightly for being too secretive during

the crisis for its disclosure of the banks that for getting its loans. one of the things that changed after the financial crisis of the dodd-frank act, but the fed acts to disclose all the banks that got loans from it during the crisis. if the fed was worried it would cause a stimulus problem if they disclose who they're lending to as a lender of last resort, that it could destabilize the banks and then people would think there was something wrong with the banks. so what they have done is now they are putting these out with a lag. but there's a lot more disclosure than they used to be. there might be areas returnee to be more. i think they need to get some credit for having made progress in the last few years. host: terry on the republican line in minnesota. caller: thanks for taking my call.

your guests spoke about the dreams of paperwork that borrowers have to go through. i purchased a rental property a couple years ago. it represented a small percentage of our assets. but the amount of paperwork we went through, we bypass the banks, just because it got to the point where they wanted to know not only how much we had but where we were spending our money. and how often. so we bypassed that. my question is regarding trust. in the housing market situation, it looks like the politicians really wanted to get people in houses, so they created an environment for lending institutions to do all this lending, irresponsible lending. i guess my question is how long i don't think it's a matter of when or if, but when these

politicians and lending institutions will start wanting to win elections again and create policies that get us back into this housing crisis that we were coming out of. host: thank you. guest: that's a fair question. right now the fed has pushed short-term interest rates to nearly zero. they're buying $40 billion a month in mortgage-backed securities and $45 billion a month of u.s. treasury bonds to push long-term interest rates lower. they are very actively trying to ease credit conditions in the mortgage market and of course the united states treasury is now the guardian of the two biggest mortgage lenders in the country -- fannie mae and freddie mac. they are very actively trying to push the housing markets off its four. i think it's a fair question

whether at some points -- it is hard to imagine after having gone through the bust we just went through that we could have another housing boom and another housing bubble. but i would not dismiss that possibility. in the 1800's we would have these successions of bubbles. you would have a bubble in railroad stocks one year and then 15 years later you would have another one. it seems out of question that it could happen so soon after we just went through this house and crisis, but i think these guys in washington need to keep an eye on that possibility. host: spring hill, florida, on our democrat line, sheldon. caller: good morning. why are we being so kind to the banks and wall street?

the banks lent people mortgage money that they knew they cannot afford -- adjustable rate mortgages. wall street took those mortgages and other securities, showed that to the public knowing it was worth nothing, and then received millions of dollars in bonuses. after they went out, the government bails them out. i am very happy that the 18- year-old understands our financial system. for those that don't, the fed -- and i don't know how they get their money -- they lend the banks $10 billion, of which they can then lend 90% for interest and it was pretty high interest. so they are putting up nothing. they may have put up their own money originally. i don't know how much of that

they spent. but then they get back interest, pay back the fed, and the young man is right, the system is made to fail. host: i also have this from twitter -- guest: two comments. one on the regulation and the other on the caller's point. what he says is fair, but i would put a few other layers into it. one is the credit rating agencies, in retrospect, ridiculous triple-a ratings on some of these mortgage bonds that were created. we cannot let american households off the hook. millions of people took the money. they borrowed the money. it is every individual's responsibility when he borrows money to say, can i pay say it back? we want to hold government accountable for borrowing so

much money and running up big deficits. the fact of the matter is american households borrowed a lot of money, took out a lot of mortgages. a lot of them were probably misled on the terms and conditions of some of these mortgages, so that is one point. households were part of this process. on regulation, that's important, because we are talking about how the mistrust in society affects the economy and the growth outlook. one thing that happens when there's less trust is that the regulators step in. we certainly see that. regulators -- we had a whole dodd-frank act, the financial overhaul. you talk to any banker right now and he will complain for a long time about all the new rules and regulations that are being thrown at the financial industry. but that is an outgrowth of mistrust.

when the public don't trust these institutions, they will regulate them more. you could argue that it is necessary, that we need rules and police in the financial markets. but the fact of the matter is that when you have more of this scrutiny and oversight, it inhibits transactions, it inhibits commercial activity. so it's one of the restraints that i think we have seen on economic activity. host: on twitter -- guest: right. host: this goes back to the regulator question. guest: the credit ratings agencies are an interesting piece of the story because they're not regulating. one of the big debates that happened in the dodd-frank act was whether the credit ratings

agencies -- we should not call them agencies, because they're not the agencies of the government. the credit ratings firms, there was a debate about whether they should be regulated by a government regulator. their argument is that there's a first amendment that protects them. if they want to put out ratings on firms, they have a first amendment right to do that. but they certainly stumbled and fell and failed the financial system leading up to the financial crisis. they took mortgage-backed securities, which were structured and very complex, that it turns out very few people understood. and they put triple-a ratings on some of these things. investors went and bought them and that was one of the things that fueled these bad mortgages. host: jon hilsenrath's piece is called "how a trust deficit hurts the economy." we have wisconsin on the

democratic line. caller: good morning. i have a question. are you willing to name the financial institutions that make up the federal reserve and probably have for the last 40 or 50 years? people should know this, that it is not in any way -- does not have anything to do with the federal government. you bring up the word "entitlement." let's talk about entitlements for senators, governors, and politicians at large, who if they get fired after four years or six years are still entitled to a large pension. if you get fired or i get fired after four years, that says basically i did not do my job. i don't think that anyone would say you worked for four years, so here's a nice pension and continued health care.

host: let's let our guests respond. guest: let's talk more about the federal reserve. there's interest in that. i should explain about its history and where it comes from. the caller is asking who makes up the fed. it was created 100 years ago by an act of congress. it has an unusual structure. and an unusual history. the fed that we know today goes back 100 years, but the united states has been having arguments with the central bank all the way back to the days of alexander hamilton and thomas jefferson. the first bank of the united states was a central bank which was basically the bank for the u.s. treasury. hamilton and jefferson argued about it. there was a second bank of the united states that was created.

andrew jackson basically ended its charter. there's a long history of mistrust in parts of the united states about the central bank and what it does. back in the jefferson and hamilton days, a lot of the farm state bankers did not trust the first bank of the united states. there is a federal reserve board in washington made up of seven governors and chairman who is ben bernanke. then there are 12 regional fed banks. they're all part of this federal reserve system. the regional fed bank, every chartered bank of the united states has to pay in capital to the federal reserve banks and in return they get a dividend.

but these are not banks the way we think of commercial banks. the federal reserve bank of new york is not like citigroup out there trying to earn big profits to return to shareholders. their job is to manage the money supply. it is also to be a lender of last resort in a crisis, which is what the federal reserve did in 2007. when there is a run on a bank, when depositors flee the banking system because they are scared their money will disappear, but the fed is there to do is provide them liquidity so they don't have to sell other assets, the banks don't have to sell all their assets overnight. that was the role they played during the financial crisis. it is also why there were created 100 years ago. there was a panic in the financial system in 1907. j.p. morgan, the individual, ended up bailing out a lot of banks that were seeing a run.

what happened after that was lawmakers got together and said we cannot depend on one individual to bail out our financial system. if we have another financial panic, that is. so they created the federal reserve system. host: bob is on the republican line. caller: good morning. talking about trust, i don't trust the federal reserve. all you have to do is read the minutes of their meetings -- a transcript of their meeting from five years ago. >> we go live to georgetown university lost under -- law learned fromsons an the 2012 election. this is live coverage getting underway. >> we are ready for the 2014 election cycle.

we are interested in discovering that campaign managers for the 2014 election are being hired. if you want to be part of that process, and i still have a resume, i would encourage you to rapidly dust. we are moving to our second panel which is about the interest groups. they are going to influence the direction of legislative activity in the congress during the 113th congress. for my new colleagues, panel, one of the analytical frameworks we use is what i call lp4. analyze things in terms of five aspects. look at an issue at the

intersection of law and policy. law, process, policy. policy drives the process. politics. sometimes that is tough to disaggregate from policy. if we define politics as the acquisition, maintenance, and use of power, that is distinct from the substantial policy issues. the final is personality. individuals matter. some individual personalities, especially so. it influences the entire flow. we will hit on a number of these aspects of the law policy intersection. as we talk with the expert individuals who represent a number of interest groups that are tremendously influential to

the flow of law and policy in washington, and the congressional process. sara chieffo is the legislative director for the league of conservation voters. it works to turn environmental ideals into national values. sara chieffo plays a role in the production of the league's national environmental scorecard, which has been the nationally accepted yardstick to great congress on environment two issues. welcome. each member of our panel has provided a bio.

we have david kirby from freedom works. he is vice president of development at freedom works. freedom words has done itself a great service with its name. it has to be one of the better organizational names. it works. it produces freedom. freedom works. level. on a medlal we need something kind of crisp like that. david is vice president of development at freedom works managing their fun writing -- from raising operations. he is the author of a number of publications and studies with regard to libertarian would he have its -- voting habits in the

age of the obama administration and current politics. welcome. brandon davis, from the service employees international union. seiu. he is the national political director. seui represents over 2 million workers and healthcare public and property services. he leads the organization's political program. he is tasked with mobilizing union members to win key elections while folding permit political infrastructure across the country to create real policy change with a focus on working families. prior to coming to seiu, he worked on electoral campaigns. he worked on senator claire mccaskill's campaign for victory. we have glen caroline joining us from the national rifle

association. he is the director of grassroots division. he implements the nra political and legislative grassroot her grams and the campaign operations, voter registration drives at the national, state, and local levels. mr. caroline is responsible for the recruitment, training, and mobilization of the volunteers nationwide. since the 2008 election cycle, glen caroline has hired, trained, and supervisor 627 field candidates for president is. -- or preservatives. welcome, glen. we will follow the same format that we did before. each of our panelists will have eight minute to lay out their initial thoughts for our

discussion. then, we will have 20 minutes or so of moderate a discussion. then, we will go to q&a from our community are today. with that, sara chieffo. >> thank you so much, dakota. can people hear me all right? ok. thank you for that kind introduction. it is a pleasure to be back here. in addition to serving as the legislative director for the league of conservation voters, i am also an alum of georgetown university. the league of conservation turned environmental values into national priorities. since 1970, we have been advertising -- advocating fort these policies. i will cover two main topics for

you guys. i look forward to a lively discussion with my colleagues on this panel. i went to cover the main lessons from the 2012 cycle from the ' league of conservation voters perspective and talk about what those lessons mean looking ahead to the 130th congress that has just begun and what it will do for the obama administration second term. the first main actiolesson is tt voters sent a clear and strong message that they want members of congress to stand up for the environment and for public health. we pulled our resources on a focused set of races. we won bigger than ever. despite the millions that were spent by outside groups by polluting industries, we saw the president reelected, the senate become more proenvironment, which was quite a tall order.

we saw a handful of house republicans who were incumbents deseeded for those positions. let me give you some stats on the electoral work that we engaged in and the 2012 cycle. lcv spent over $14 million this cycle. that is more than the last three cycles combined. we also raise our conservative more than $2 million to proenvironment candidates. we won 15 out of 17 of our target teresa's. as include selecting set new climate an advance to the senat. they have voted to protect the environmental protections ac tions. those at for not successful. we also helped elect two governors in tight races. in montana and in washington state.

governor ensley may be the greenest governor in the nation. in the house, we launched a new lf twhirl -- electoral process. we targeted five incumbent representatives for being climate change deniers. we defeated four of those five and nearly not at all five. we think that program demonstrated that being a climate change denier is not just that policy. it is that politics as well. we also reelected the president with the help of over 10,000 members who volunteered. in the presidential campaign, the wind industry played a key role in colorado and iraq for thousands of jobs in stake. we defeated to anti-environment candidates in the primary. they were targeting climate

change and clean energy legislation. we have a signature list call our dirty dozen list. the target some of the heaviest polluters for defeat. we deleted -- we defeated 11 of those 12. it represents the most successful year. in the senate, we continue to see a firewall in the senate of proenvironment candidates and senators who will act as a firewall against assaults on the environment that we intend to paid best that we anticipate will continue. the second main take away was that the message beat the money. we were dramatically outspent by karl rove and big polluters. we had the public on our side. voters supported leaders who

confront the challenge of climate change. we talsaw attacks on energy policies. we saw attacks on mitt romney, heather wilson in numeral central -- in but those attacks proved unsuccessful as well. >> the money spent on the affiliated cross roads organization. the millions that was spent was spent on winning races. you contrast that with the record i'm sharing with you today our organization 83% of the money we spent was on winning races. one great example of naffs massachusetts where we ran allegedability accountability ads on scott brown on his

environmental record and ties to the big oil companies both taking money on an campaign side and voting for taxpayer handouts to those industries that are making near record profits at the pump. preand post polling from those ads showed that his record dropped among independent a shocking 21%. so i thaufer as an anecdote of ow powerful the ties are in terms of public mind of who they trust in elected office and who they are taking their money from and whose bidding they are doing. folks want to know more about our work you can check it out at our website. i got some copies of our elections report in back if you would like to take them at the end. you don't have to take my word for our success source i can offer two quotes from senators we worked with. senator elizabeth warren said they did an incredible job of educating voters about scott

brown's ties to big oil. that was essentialle in my victory. >> when carl row started pouring money into new mexico to defeat me, they pushed back to help sure we won this race. so pretty powerful endorsements from races where we worked. let me close with a few forward looking comments on the second obama term. sp despite these electoral victimries, we believe congress is a dysfunctional place to do business and we think advancements in congress on environmental policies are slim. that means the main opportunity for forward progress in the next few years with the president authority through executive action he can take. we anticipate that we'll continue to see pretty broad and sweeping attacks on our

air, our water, our land, our wild life from the boehner led house of representatives and in the senate we anticipate our senate allies will stand strong against these misled attacks. as i said, this election cycle demonstrated there is strong support for addressing climate change. this is heightened in the wake of super storm sandy and this being the hottest year on record for our globe. we are going to see further action on climate change coming from the president in his second term which he made a commitment in his speech in tackling climate change. now the president posseses some very powerful tools to make progress on the climate crisis. much of that authority stems from the environmental protection agency's role in implementing and enforcing the

clean air act. it's been afirmed by the supreme court. the president's first term took several actions to reduce pollution from cars and trucks and doubling our nation's renewable energy sources. they proposed first standards to reduce pollution from power plants. that is in draft form without for public comment and had a record breaking 3 million comments in support that exceeds any other. and we think it non-straits the public appetite for strong action on climate change. we are pushing for standard producing carbon producing from power plants to be announced soon and finalized with all due haste. power plants are our nation's single largest source of carbon pollution representing 40% of our nation's annual contributions. we are encouraged by the

comments from the president's comments in his inaugural address. another lesson we think will bear on this 113 congress is that the public strongly supports the e.p.a. scientistists doing their job protecting the air we breathe and water we drink. we hear talk in this town of e.p.a. run amuck or gone too far. when we look at this issue across the country, voters trust them to do this job of protecting the air we breathe and water we drink and expect them to do. so the people they don't trust to do this is congress, especially members of congress who are taking campaign contributions from polluting industries. this is widespread, it's not just the bigger metropolitan areas. we did polling areas in 32 swing districts across the nation and found across the southeast, midwest there is a strong support and trust in the

e.p.a. and their scientists. another lesson we think will hold an impact on what happens this congress is that politicians who take money from big oil companies and vote to protect their taxpayer handouts are on dangerous ground. we anticipate we will continue to see in this series of budget and spending and sequestration fight that is will dominate much of the discussion here snite the beltway. we will continue to see the president and allies in congress call for an end to these harmful handouts in our nation's largest oil companies. we've seen strong support for clean energy and energy efficiency investments. it's a chance for forward progress on in building our economy and moving ahead from the 21st century. so we anticipate that we'll continue to see calls for expanded investments in energy. and energy efficiency is where

we've seen bipartisan support and we're hopeful for progress. there are areas outside of that there might be progress. one sear reforming our nation's chemical laws that govern kemcals used in our workplaces. with that i'll close and look forward to my other panelist's remarks. >> i know that we have some new faces in the crowd who weren't here before. if you have a device my advice is to silence it. >> so the first time i realized that something was changing in america was in september 2009 at the taxpayer march in washington. i came down to check that out and i found hundreds of thousands of people there and many were holding this nerdy

libertarian

to be well in 2012 the interesting thing was data showed that independents were the fasting growing demographic in america with now 40% of americans calling themselves independent an all time high. the only political brand in america that is worse than democrats is republicans. in other words, most americans outside of washington don't want anything to do with the political parties. so actually the big headline in 2012 is that many of these independents stayed home. 2012 was a low turnout election. 3 percentage points fewer americans showed up in 2012

than in 2008 and fewer americans showed up this year than 2004. mitt romney barely won as many votes as john mccain did in 2008. if you compare preelection estimates to exit polls, what you find is 5 percentage points of independents didn't show up. so the party that actually figures out how to represent these independents, and my hunch is many of them are these social liberal voters is going to be ahead in the demographic race. that's why you saw smart democrats actually run functionally libertarian campaigns. notice democrats who won, they ran on fiscal issues and distanced themselves from the president. they stole the rhetoric of fiscal conservatives. this is also why you found

republican candidates who won, they ran on fiscal issues but they didn't emphasize abortion. over time, i believe the party that embraces this libertarian center of the public will come ahead in the demographic battle. the second point i'd like to make is about the tea party. some people think the tea party lost the election particularly in the senate. and the argument goes something like that this n. 2010 there was kristine o'donnell and in 2012 there is today akin. todd akin. what we need is safe on the republican side, reliable, moderate candidates. and the lesson learn sd we have to stop this tea party from taking over the process. anyone in the audience heard this argument? >> so several points to make. first this is a pretty self-serving argument for politicians who want to get taken out in primaries.

but todd akin was never tea party. he was an earmarker and opposed by every tea party group. akin was so bad he didn't even get sarah palin's endorsement. somehow after his rape comment that got national news the media labeled him tea party and it stuck. we wouldn't touch him. we called for him to immediately drop out. but it was establishment republicans who came to try to help him in the end. the national republican snorl committee put money in their race at the end, not tea party groups. the third problem with this tea party argument, it doesn't make sense when you look at the data. look at the safe candidates that they backed. tommie thompson in wisconsin. tommie thompson was the perfect

moderate candidate in a winnable race in wisconsin. and the others were supposed to be easy wins but they all three lost. if you look at the data and compare vote performance of a basket of candidates who were tea party guys like josh in ohio, jeff in arizona and tom in pennsylvania and you compare those to tommie thompson, those establishment guys did worse. they did twice as bad for vote performance. the reason this lesson is important it's like tp gang warfare in politics over the 2014 elections. nobody wants to have to go through that. that's why you saw people like lamar alexander and lindsay gram worried. i would argue this is good for the process. one of those p.'s in your

introduction. as long as politicians think they can say and do whatever they want in washington and no one is going to hold them accountable at home they will keep kicking the can down the road. so the final point i want to make is about tactics because i think one lesson to learn is too much money has been spent on tv ad buys relative to grassroots. hundreds of millions of dollars on outside groups on tv ads. and it didn't really buy much but grassroots seems to be the future. obama learned this early on. he had a four year head start and with his data machine, they built a kind of grassroots tactical edge that is the model of politics. my favorite example of this is that the obama campaign actually hired a guy in cleveland who is sole job it

was to go to work shops all day he'd go to one barbershop, then another, he'd sit around talk to people, what are the hopes and dreams. what is going on in the family. what are their financial problems. so when it came time to turn them out on election day, it's like turning out your friend. now i don't care how much money you put into media buys you cannot done kate that connection with voters. it seems that strategists are catching on. but there has to be a caveyot. 2012 was not 2010. 2010 i would say was a policy referendum on policy issues, healthcare, bailout spending. 2012 at the end of the day was a personality contest at the presidential level. mitt romney was the next white guy in line and like bob dole.

no doubt republicans will lose that contest every time. the obama won a tactical grassroots victory against a very weak candidate. but now that strategists are recognizing grassroots is the future. i don't think the republican party will be successful with this. they have such low credibility with the grassroots they couldn't done kate the obama machine if they wanted to. that's why freedom works will only grow over time. in conclusion, i viewed 2012 as a stalemate election. the republican house majority was retaped from 2010. the composition of senate actually became slightly more fiscally conservative with ted cruise and neff flake and the president won with his emphasis on grassroots. but the big story is growing demographic in america, that fiscally conservive independent group. the lesson is if you align

yourself with those voters in the policy instance of what they care about then you're going to be well positioned for the future. both parties will tack toward this libertarian center over time. thank you. >> thank you to the georgetown law center for hosting this conversation today. i'll be at the game tomorrow. i'm going to be brief. i get the pleasure and the honor of representing working families on this pan nem. and i want to be brief because i look forward to a back and forth with my colleagues on the panel. we've talked about takeaways on this election, we've talked about the makeup of the senate. i look forward to talking more because i think there were some moves forward fiscal liberalism thinking in the senate. so i look forward to talking about that. i think there is one big

takeaway then i want to share the story of the work i see working families took on in this election. this was an election about two different points of view in the country. i cannot remember a time when the debate in the country was more focused on issues and more focused on a specific set of issues. so i think what we heard the electorate say was a repudiation of candidates like mitt romney were putting forward like you are in this on your own. that the country is set up in a way that if you can maket, you can make it and if you can't, too bad. i think there was a real embrace of a different idea that president obama put forward not only in the election but beginning in 2008 and moving through his most recent speech at the inauguration that we are in this together. and it's an idea that we certainly embrace as the american labor movement and service employees union.

as was said in the beginning we are a labor yuan on of 2.1 million members across the country. we represent workers, service employees, we represent home care workers in the healthcare field and cust i had to yans and public workers. and in representing those members we haven been able to build what i this is one of the most effective if not the most effective grassroots operation in the country. we see grassroots as not just the future but the past and has been a part of our effort for quite some time. i think it is no secret working families have been under an attack since the 2010 election. we have been under a messaging attack for the last 30 years. and this attack over the last two years has taken shape at the state level. but it's been an attack on a lot of different fronts whether

it's on workers rights or unions to collectively barning like we've seen in wisconsin and new hampshire over the last two years or the attack on voting rights. the attack on voting rights that seem to disenfranchise those in communities of color or working families. we've seen it in the economic attack the imbalance in income that is growing in this country from c.e.o.s who are making 750 times the hourly wage of the employees. we've seen it also in terms of the economic imbalance in our system t citizens yithe ruling and all of those things coming together in a coordinated attack on working families. so when our members came together in the summer of 2011 to think about this election and what we needed to do in this election, we balked away from that conversation with asset of goals re-electing

president obama and champions for working families but we also walked away with a recognition from our members that we've won elections before. in 2008, our members went out and joined with other partners and won at every level. win ago loan is not enough. it is a prerequisite because you cannot make policy change without winning elections. but it is inefficient. we not only needed to win in this election, but we needed to win on a mandate. it needed to be about something. we needed to take that mandate, not in numbers, but in issues mandate, one we could fight on in policy and make policy change. and we focused on a cup of areas. job creation. and everyone paying their fair share of taxes. the third thing we focused on was ending cuts to vital

services mike medicaid and social security. and we wanted to create a fair path to citizenship for all immigrants. so we went into focusing on that as our effort this year. to do this our members said we had to be more efficient, more effective and more focused than we've ever been before. because on top of everything else we were facing this terrible imbalance created by citizens united. we said we were going to do asset of things. we were going to protect and expand access to the vote for communities of color and working families. we said we were going to particularly focus in the latino community which we watched in 2010 as a candidate for governor in california said one thing in english and a totally other thing in spanish and felt like she could walk away with a confused electorate and not pay the price for what she said in english.

we were not going to allow that divide to create a confusion in the latino community. beyond that we said that we were going to shape the debate by investing your resources in paid media in a way that showed the contrast that existed between candidates that were standing with working families and those that wanted to perpetuate the status quo of a growing gap. those were the things we wanted to focus on. and we built a program that could succeed around that. we said we wanted to build a program that would win in the changing electorate this country was facing. we focused in the flynn community and latino -- african-american american and latino community. but we set out with our members in the lead. we ran this program under asset of clear tact tix were that taken on before. one a massive field program

we're proud of. our members as volunteers, our members as paid staff. those taking leave of absence from their job to work on this campaign because of the stakes. we supplemented that work in the field with our work in media and mail and communicating with voters about the issues that were facing the country. when we walk away we feel good about the numbers. we look at the african-american community where the turnout in 2008 was maintain in the overall electorate in 2012. we look at the latino vote that went from 9 or 10% of the electorate to 11% depending on which polls you look at. that vote became more democratic but that vote supported at a higher level proworker candidates going from 67% to 71% support for president obama. in union household votes we

worked to expand the way the vote not only interacted at the ballot box but impacted voters knocking on doors and talking to people in their communities and believe that is the most effective way to move a message. and theation vote that came larger and more progressive. >> we are proud of a 77% win ratio. you've heard folks begin to focus on the sunlight's foundation analysis. they said they were 84% efficient. where we ininvested we got an 84% return on our investment. something we are proud of given the economic imbalance that exist. and i want to share with you some numbers our members did in the field. one our members knocked on 5.5 million doors across the country over a 240 day span. for those of you who have

knocked a door for a weekend, you know how daunting a task that is. we had members who knocked on doors 240 days so real dedication. 75,000 new registered voters. we invested $4.3 until voter registration this year to ensure the tact i cans being put forward to suppress the vote were not successful. over the air we ran 64 different television and radio ads including a spanish language expenditure. we believe the largest the country has ever seen we did in partnership with priorities aust. lastly our mail program, over 9 million pieces of mail communicating with voters. we take great pride in this 77% ratio. we take great pride in the efficiency numbers. but what we take the greatest pride in is the work our

members did in shaping the debate on the core issues. we now have a president who has won election and reelection talking about the need to increase taxes as a way to create revenue to protect vital services. we have an election that has been won by a new majority, a new electorate, a new coalition that has spoke loudly and clearly that immigration reform has to be a key issue. and we're seeing democrats and eprans have an epiffny about this issue and creating a path to citizenship. we are seeing a debate in the country that is going to lead to us electoral wins because you win elections to change policy. but now we are having a debate in the country about policies. and that is going to lead lead us to better job creation and lead to us a place where close quality gap in the country.

and so my takeaway as i said in this election, is that we are in this together. and now i look forward to talking a little bit as we go throughout the panel about how our members didn't come off the doors after the election. elections are simply a flash point in our cyclical calendar now where we are fighting to change and cement in a direction for the country. so we'll continue to fight in a direction in the country that builds an economy that works for us all and i look forward to talking about that as the panel goes on. >> thank you. >> thank you for including me in this panel. i've been impressed with what i've heard so far. i think one of the things you will find is despite all of us advocate for different issues and may represent different constituents. there are common takeaways. i want to begin with an

observation i made with reporting after elections you determine how well an organization fared. i think there has been too much emphasis on the causele relationship and oversimp indication of how much an organization spend on a race and whether they win or lose. money is important in politics, all the things we do and all the things you hear about cost money. but i want to talk about some of the takeaways that you don't read about in the national press that were the keys to our successes in the 2012 elections and will be the building blooks of the national rifle association moving toward. >> one of the things i learned is the more local liesed and the longer sustainable presence we had on the ground t better results we had. this year we expanded our campaign field representative program further than we have before. we employed 25 campaign reps in

13 different states targeting different congressional races. these were beam embedded in their district doing nothing but to motivate and turn out the prosecond amendment community in support of our candidates through traditional and non-traditional means. when you look at the races we targeting our efrlts we thought it could push a candidate over the victory line. these were not easy races. of those races we enjoyed a 92% success rate. so by having them set up offices and go to the different gun shops and go to the gun shows and be at the shooting ranges and at the county fares and at the nascar events, they became part of the community and were able to interact with the constituents we were trying to mobilize and then turn out

our vote on election day. i don't think in this day in age there can be any substitute moving forward for a more sustainable personalized relationship between field staff and the constituents they are trying to mobilize. we are seeing there is no long ernie intermission, there is no such thing as an off election year. every off year there are states that have state level elections that organizations such as the national rifle association needs to engage inin >> there are things that crop up. but an organization that tried to shut off and start up in an election year does so at its own pearl. we are in a grassroots campaign mode always trying to enhance and improve our program so we are ready for the next election. it has become a year round on year off year endeavor and i

think it will continue to be that way. we are sying more of a reliance on social networking, not just to deliver ads but to promote activities and promote events. one of the things we are doing a much better job is competing for better demographics. for example we know there is a right constituents si at testimony ledge that support the second eafment. you may not think it but we've experienced it. our most pap lar grassroots program is n.r.a. university to educate them on the second amendment and transform them into activists. this is the most popular program we v. we can't keep one requests we get. we did 46 universities in 15 different states across the country. these college students who attended were integral parts of our volunteer networks that our representatives were using for door knocking, phone calls to

work at events. so i think we're really seeing the power of a more localized sustainable presence. a reliance in integration if you will of social networking is a great way to communicate not just with the younger generation but with a wider demographic because more people are using social applications to get news and information as it pertains to issues or even political candidates and elections. so i think moving forward, as you know, we've been in the news a little bit here and there so we will be busy. we will use that campaign model which captured a lot of energy and enthusiasm and a large number of political volunteers and we'll transform that enthusiasm and energy into legislative activism. since december our association has gone up to 4.4 million deuce paying members.

when our rights come and you tack as they presently are in congress and elsewhere, they are going to rise to the occasion and get engaged. i think any casual observer in politics know there is no substitute for the programs the n.r.a.'s grassroots division can offer buzz because we are large and educated and get involved in the legislative and political process. we will be preparing right now to engage in campaign activities for the hand full of states that will have off year elections as a ramp up in preparation for 2014 already laying the ground work for 20 146789 i would dare say there wasn't a candidate anywhere in america in 2012 showing he or she was a supporter of gun control. i challenge anyone to show me one where a candidate said i

support gun control. that may be different in 2014 but our goal in empowering our grassroots is two sides of the same coin. we dedicate a lot of resources to educating them to make sure they understand the i did names of the debate and they get trained to be more effective actist and activating them to e-mail their law makers to attend rallies and toub halls to register voters to go to gun shows to sign up n.r.a. members. our cycle has transformed from an election psych toll a more john going period to work to improve the act ift of our members and we will be fully engaged in 2013 as well as 2014 as well. i don't want to take too much time because i see our time is getting short and i'm more interested in the questions and comments you all have. i look forward to hearing from

you the audience. >> thank you glen for your comments and each of you on the panel. if we were to think back to what this conversation may have sounded like two cycles ago or one cycle ago, it would probably have some different themes that we'd here. so at this point after the 2008 elections we would be talking about whether this was a post partisan moment, whether this was a progressive moment and people were wondering about the direction the newly elected president would take that the democratically controlled congressity would take as well. one cycle ago at this point in 2011 we would have been talking even more about the tea party than the discussion that we've had so far. now both of these things, both of these directions for conversation, post partisanship

and that's the direction or a progressive moment or the tea party, both of these are not as much a part of the conversation today. we're at a different moment. in the opening comments we've had from our expert panel of individuals representing important interest groups, we've heard different takes on the 2012 election. is it an election that produced stalemate? is it one instead that produced a mandate for conservation or for action on behalf of working families? is it a flash point? or sit kind of -- or sit one moment in a broader process which glen car line described as a perpetual campaign. is the 113 congress going to be

different? has this election yielded aid congress and washington which is going to operate differently and feel differently or can we expect more of the same? >> i will say more of the same. as i argued, it was a stalemate , no house has changed. the 2010 house majority was retained. as i said the senate became slightly more fiscally conservative. many voters didn't show up. many voters remaining to be frustrated. we're sick of the partisan gridlock. but there is a bipartisan consensus to keep kicking the can down the road. i think the debt ceiling went like groundhog day. it's like this time we're going to have this debate. then at midnight on new year's

eve we pass a bill and give senators six minutes to reid it before it goes and we've now avoided the fiscal by kicking the can down the road which now we passed a bill to push off until may the reckoning for the debt ceiling. nobody has come to the table to try to fix things. i say the senate hasn't actually passed a budget. the president and democrats haven't passed a budget in four years. there is a fundamental inability for congress to do their job. you are supposed to pass a budget by april 15. you are supposed to reconcile all those bills by october. that hasn't happened in four years. instead we've had this crisis atmosphere where things are passed in the middle of the night and nothing gets done. >> we only look at law makers records as they pertain to gun related issues.

the numbers in the house and numbers of the senate haven't changed so much from the previous congress but there are faces that haven't been faced with the prurs to vote on a gun related bill. i think from a group like us, we can't sit back and assume the congress is going to act the same or act differently. we have to prepare to represent our members in congress to make sure the message for support of the second amendment is carried to every lawmaker whether they've been with us or against us in the past. i don't know how functional this congress will be but i can assure you we will be functional in representing its members interest before both house members and senators as well. >> i think it's too early to tell. it depends on how we define function mall. i look at the process we just went through and when you make movement toward bringing back into balance our tax system.

that feels like movement to me. when i see a bipartisan group of senators put forth principles for immigration reform, i think it's a little early to tell, i think we are looking at where this congress is cal brathe itself. i look at murphy replacing lieberman. that is moving the senate into a place we're becoming more fiscally thoughtful about how to create revenue. i feel like we're moving toward a plice i'm pleased with that. i would challenge the notion that this was a stalemate election just simply because this was a modern day landslide on the president side. you had democrats pick up in the senate, democrats pick up in the house, you had the president re-elected in a moment where the economy would not have said necessarily that this would be an easy

reelection and you had him re-elected expanding in a lot of ways the coalition that he came out of 2008 with. so i don't think we were in a stalemate election. i think there has been movement and regardless of what this congress believes it will do, i believe that the numbers that it is seeing from the public approval ratings and the fervor that we will hear on these issues we already have will move this congress in a different way or there will be an extreme amount of peril for members of congress in 2013. >> i want to give you a chance to respond. i want to add an additional question for our discussion here. assuming everything that our colleagues have said here, how does sequencing matter? how does the see consequencing of the legislative ajenddass and the president and house republicans and democrats, how is that going to play?

sara if you could talk from a conservation standpoint and our colleagues can jump in as well? >> from a standpoint looking at the 113th congress and how different will it be? too early to tell. i think the next six months will be telling in terms of if we see any shifts in the ability to work across partisan lines and actually legitimate. i'm not holding my breath but i think we'll see. and then in terms of the composition, we there there's been an increase in support for environmental actions especially in the senate so we would argue that while the total numbers might not have changed significantly the support for action on clean energy and climate change have gotten more intense and we are very excited to see those dynamics. i think because of the kicking the can down the road that my colleague david touched on, we will see this continued stalemate and fight over fiscal issues and sequestration continue to take up a lot of

oxygen and that doesn't build a lot of bipartisan morale. and so in terms of see consequencing i think that could take away the ability to build goodwill and forward progress on issues there is been willingness to come together. i think on immigration it's not an issue my organization works on but we're watching to see the dynamics of people coming together across the aisle to advance solution that have been elusive up to now. >> you mentioned that this john going kicking the can fiscal crisis with relatively minor but still very painful and very difficult steps to deal with the nation's fiscal imbalance is dominating a lot of the debate and that has a partisan ang toll it. let me go to the other members

of the panel and ask you from your standpoint advocating for your organization, how does the partisanship play for you. sit more useful for you or impediment for you and your organization trying to get done policy things or stop policy things which are particularly important to your organization? >> from n.r.a. perspective, we draw allies and opponents alike from each party. we have good friends in congress who are democrats, we have some who don't vote our way who are republicans. i think for us to succeed, we need a cross partisan representation in the house and senate to achieve our goal. one point i would make on the gun issue is this isn't just limited to congress which we have a president right now if he doesn't like what congress does he puts things through executive action. which brings a new wrinkle. this appears to be a battle

fought on many fronts, not just congress. >> i think the president feels and is unencome berd. there is executive he can take which is good in this gridlock. partisanship is one thing gridlock is another. the partisanship we are seeing is because there are differences on issues. the way we adjudicate those is in elections. voters are getting a chance to see the difference between where candidates are on key issues. from that standpoint i think it's good from the sfpt it creates ideological gridlock i think it is bad. we have a system in the country to create laws and take action through congressional action and executive action. it's not great for move ling forward the country, it's bad for that. so one of the things we've done is we are very focused, we have

a great member republican program. we have a great deal of our members who are independents and another great deal are democrats. but we've tried to take a non-partisan tack to this. you hear me talking about supporting candidates supporting working families and issues. that's what we do. my hope is we continue to have a great debate in the country but as these debates are won and as they are vick tors and losers that we're able to move forward in the way that the electorate is defining that based on the way they make their voices heard both in electoral action and on the phone. i think a lot of the senators are being flooded right now. members of congress ignore that as their peril and we saw that in 2010 out of an election about jobs and they don't

create a job. there is pain for that and there will be more if that continues on. >> we have about ten minutes left and i want to make sure we get to questions from the community. i see a former student with a question. we have a microphone right there. >> thanks for coming today. there are only 25 in the house that where the electorate representative is from a different party than how the district voted for in the presidential racement that's a record low as compared to in the numbers ot hundreds as recently as the 1970's. so i'm curious what are some of the root causes of. this is it sort of natural seggration among the parties and mobility between districts? sit from your perspective sit

damaging the credibility of congress if they are sort of particle sis in addressing our problems because of this ideological partisanship, is that shifting in our system some of the responsibilities for governing to the other branches and is that hurting the long term ability of congress to address problems? >> thanks. >> sara or david, how does this issue look from your organization standpoint? >> news flash, politicians tend to gain rules so ut it's about redistricting. so clever politicians will get together and say we'll put the more republican leaning districts more republican leaning voters in your district if you give me the democrat

voting in my district. there are fewer districts competitive because they've redrawn the boundaries. is that good for democracy? >> one of the reasons you will never have a credible third party challenge is both democrats and republicans work together to keep those types of actions from being possible and difficult to happen. >> do you want a third party? >> it would be great. i think it would add a lot to the debate. >> a libertarian sneart >> maybe. but the tactical advantage that both parties have over time has only grown. >> you put the nail on the head with redistricting. it's a huge factor here. i also think we've seen in this day in age an intensification of where people get their information from. we're reading sources online we agree with. so there is a social aspect as

well as the real structural redistricting reasons we are seeing this low number in terms of what you define as swing districts. so i think this may have real implications for who the representatives feel accountable to and for how we legitimate through these tough issues where both sides have to give. and we'll see how that place out but it's a good trend and a good question. >> i'm a little curious given the level of influence all your organizations have in educating the public and congress and making threats about the next election, how responsible do you think interest groups should feel for the gridlock and do you think there are compromising your organizations will discuss to get past that and do you think it will be a good thing? >> i don't think an

organization that edge indicates people in the political process has anything to apologize for. i think groups like the n.r.a. that edge indicates it's members of concern primarily the second amendment issues represents everything that is right with america because it is truly a grassroots movement with millions of americans in fact hundreds of millions of americans who want to protect their second amendment right. our politicians work for us and not the other way around. >> and i would add maybe a public choice point from economics. the pattern that you find in washington is there are concentrated benefits and diffuse cost. so when there is something to be handed out whether it's a credit or subsidy or some sort of regulation you have lob bis who sprout up and focus their attention on that. freedom works try to equal lies

that pattern so the people who have the benefits can have a larger voice so they can have something at the table. that's the whole idea of trying to change the pattern of incense tives that over time have increased the size of government. >> other questions. >> i've heard this panel and the previous panel talk about the importance of grassroots politics and you spoke a little bit about citizens united so i'm wondering how you viewed that decision as impacting your organizations and is all of the sort of media and i guess advertisements do they cancel each other out and at the end of the day it's just the grassroots politics that win? >> we talked about this on the previous panel is the oversat relation of the media that we

saw. it's still an effective medium in communicating. but the reality is when there is so much to cut through and so much to figure out and there are real different differences, it's important to have a face to face conversation. there is nothing more effective. it was not by co-incidence we focused -- 14% is african-american, 12% latino. our members were uniquely suited to not only speak at validate torser but were in our communities. they live and work in these communities. so i think that has been and continues to be the most effective way to communicate. as for the specifics of citizens united, i would say for working people there is no value in citizens united whatsoever. so any idea that citizens

united has been valuable for labor unions as it has been for corporation social security completely false and off base. the reality is it has forced a different level of ago gation of resource in both financial and information al in a way we did partnerships with our allies and partners with the super pacs to reduce the cost of our research or to share media or share field programs in a way that i think has been beneficial as an unintended by product of citizens united but there is no value for working families in citizens united whatsoever, only detriment. >> from the league of conservation voters perspective, this was a huge change in terms of the amount of money in politics. our members care extremely deeply about this, the climate change and other issues.

getting money out of politics is a top concern for our members. and they are very interwoven because the big polluting industries have when they are able to spend unlimited amount on elections. i think i underscore how important the grassroots tactics my colleagues talked about. we couldn't agree more. part of the benefit you see we know from all of the metrix there is nothing more effective than a door to door conversation, face to face conversation. it will trump an ad on any scale. i do think it's important for see consequencing reasons to get out and talk to voters early and provide a frame of reference because ads can be mid leading and they are often times at full sat relation. i was in nevada for the last few weeks of this cycle and you could not sneeze without seeing a political ad at all levels.

just add that a lot of grassroots passion around getting money out of politics. and have those discussions early can count act some misleading ads that come in late in the relative time line of the election cycle. >> if i could offer a different perspective on that. >> once against politicians break the rules. campaign finances restrictions benefit incumbents. if you've been an incumbent and it's hard for an upstart to challenge you. so the lifting of the restriction has allowed people to have a bigger voice in the process. that's part of the first amendment rights. >> we just have about a minute left so very concisely and precisely state your question. precisely state your question. >>